Telus is dangling a financial carrot in front of local residents in hopes of gaining access to their telephones, televisions and computers.
The Vancouver-based telecommunications company has undertaken a mass public mailout offering phone, TV and Internet services for a bundled rate of $41 a month. This price, which doesn’t include 911 service charges and taxes, jumps to $81.95 per month after one year.
The offer follows Telus’s rollout of satellite TV across much of Alberta and British Columbia late last month. A news release issued by Telus on June 29 said its satellite service is accessible by 90 per cent of households in both provinces.
Subscribers require a special receiver for each TV.
Telus also provides digital television through its wireline broadband network, but this service is currently only available in some cities. In Alberta, these consist of Edmonton, Calgary, Fort McMurray and Grande Prairie.
“It is coming to Red Deer,” said Telus spokesman Shawn Hall.
Hall declined to specify a timeline for competitive reasons, but confirmed that the service would arrive here within months.
“We’ve got to build new infrastructure in a community before we can bring it out,” he said, explaining that Telus must run fibre optic cabling into a neighbourhood before the signal is accessible there.
“As we build out that infrastructure, we’re launching IP (Internet protocol) Telus TV.”
When that happens in Red Deer, he said, customers will be able to choose between Telus satellite and IP TV.
“They’re both distinct, they both have different advantages,” said Hall, pointing out that satellite TV carries more channels but IP TV offers video on demand and time-shifted channels.
“They’ve got different advantages.”