With more intense competition looming on the horizon from the soon-to-be-deregulated carriers, Videotron has proclaimed it now has more than 400,000 cable telephone customers after two years in the business. Of course, it helps to offer service for as low as $16.95 a month if you’re a triple-play customer but there’s no doubt Videotron has made life miserable for Bell Canada, particularly in Montreal.
The key question now is whether Videotron will be able to maintain this momentum when the local telephone market is deregulated, and Bell will be able to sell its service for whatever price it wants without seeking regulatory approval. Given Bell’s drive to improve revenue, it’s unlikely it will try to regain market share by slashing prices (that would be anathema to COO George Cope’s disciplined pricing approach) but you can expect Bell to do some targeting marketing in places where Videotron has a strong foothold. Should be fun to watch.
Technorati Tags: Videotron, Bell Canada
I don’T think that Bell will try and bring us back into the fold. They seem focussed on key business markets and have not pushed hard for lower pricing in the Canadian marketplace. I have been using Videotron’s VoIP since July 2006 and it has saved me some money. I am not a big fan of Videotron, since they tend to be very focused on only one core group of customers, but with prices that are unbeatable in my market I had to try it out.