Cogeco Launches Cable Telephony Service
Cogeco Cable has launched its telephony service today in Oakville, Ont. and Burlington, Ont. with prices starting at $44.99 for customers who also use Cogeco's high-speed Internet and cable services. It costs $49.95 for consumers who only have Cogeco high-speed service. Cogeco's pricing strategy should please Rogers Communications CEO Ted Rogers because it positions the service as a premium product - meaning Rogers can sell its cable telephony service later this year for $40 to $50 a month, rather than the $15.95 to $30 that Videotron is charging in Montreal. Cogeco's service, which will be rolled out to most cities served by the company over the next 18 months, includes voice mail, call display, call waiting, visual call waiting, call forwarding, 411, 611 and 911 access, as well as eight hours of back-up power. Early-birds will also get free installation by a technician - much like Videotron is doing. It will be interesting to see how many Bell Canada customers jump ship to Cogeco. For $44.95, you can get a Bell line with voice-mail, call-display and call-forwarding. Until Bell decides what it wants to do in the Internet telephony market, the carrier should go after Cogeco, et al by emphasizing that its service works extremely well, it's priced right and cable telephony offers little more than what consumers already have.
June 8th, 2005 at 10:01 am
After 36 yrs, we finally have an alternative to bad customer service. I foresee a lot of Bell lines going dark this summer. DSL = Dark Subscriber Lines. It's the future.
-Randy
http://www.kbcafe.com
June 8th, 2005 at 10:03 am
Pretend this is a trackback.
http://www.kbcafe.com/iBLOGthere4iM/?guid=20050608070001
June 8th, 2005 at 10:24 am
I just don't get this pricing, or that of Cogeco's erstwhile competitors. A POTS phone line bundles copper, TDM, and PSTN. If I'm already buying an IP line that bundles copper and DSL+IP, or coax and DOCSIS+IP, I want the VoIP pricing to be the marginal cost.
In other words, I want Internet+VoIP should be priced competitively with POTS. What gives?
June 9th, 2005 at 10:25 am
Yoy say that for $45 you can get a Bell line with 3 features which is true, but that does not include LD. Therefore the difference between Cogeco and Bell is unlimited LD throughout North America plus more features.