Rogers on track for VOIP
Rogers Communications is still shooting for July 1 for its launch into Internet telephony. Alan Horn, Rogers' chief financial officer, told an investment conference today the service will be launched in Ontario this year and Atlantic Canada in 2006. Horn was less forthcoming on Rogers' pricing plans. He diplomatically said Rogers will fall somewhere between Videotron's discount approach and Shaw's premium pricing strategy. When asked about whether Rogers has the same kind of penetration goals as Shaw - 20% of the market within five years - he saidit was “not a bad target”.
It's interesting that as Rogers surges ahead with Internet telephony, Call-NetEnterprises isn't placing much focus on the business this year. Instead, Call-Net will continue to grow its traditional wireline local business, which ended the year with about 310K residential customers. Call-Net CEO Bill Linton said he does believe Internet telephony will have much of an impact on the market this year. I get the feeling he still sees the market focused on price rather than features so there is no real need for Call-Net to allocate some of its marketing resources on a service with minimal demand.
