What is Telus?

TELUS Corporation
	Public TSX: T NYSE: TU
Founded	Edmonton, Alberta (1990)
Headquarters	Burnaby, British Columbia
Key people	Darren Entwistle, President and CEO
Industry	Telecommunications
Revenue	C$8.143 billion
Operating income	C$1.672 billion
Net income	C$700.3 million
Employees	29,819 (2006)
Website	www.telus.com

TELUS (TSX: T, NYSE: TU) is a Canadian telecommunications firm, the country's second-largest telecommunications carrier after Bell Canada, with C$8.8 billion of annual revenue, 10.8 million customer connections which includes 4.5 million wired network access lines, 1.05 million Internet subscribers, and 5.1 million wireless subscribers. The company provides a wide range of wireline and wireless telecommunications products and services including data, IP, voice, video, and entertainment services. It is the primary local telephone service provider (ILEC) in Alberta, British Columbia, as well as in portions of eastern Quebec near Quebec City and the Gaspé region; it competes with Bell and other telephone companies as a CLEC in many parts of Canada that lie outside of Telus' ILEC regions.

While the company name is not an acronym, it is typically written in uppercase in Telus' documentation and communications material.

History

The history of Telus began with Alberta Government Telephones (AGT), which was established by the Alberta provincial government under the provincial Liberal Party in 1907 to acquire and operate Bell Canada operations in the province, which were scant, inadequate for the growing settlements, and which the government felt that Bell had neglected in favour of central Canada. AGT was then commissioned to develop telephone services for the entire province. Edmonton, however, had a city-owned telephone utility, 'Edmonton Telephones' later to become Edmonton Telephones Corporation (EdTel), an arms' length company of the City of Edmonton, that contracted for long distance with AGT.

Tensions erupted between AGT and EdTel in the early 1980s, as EdTel wanted more revenue from the long distance traffic it generated for AGT. Without any willingness by AGT to negotiate, EdTel began scrambling long distance billing records so that AGT could not bill for calls. AGT responded by routing all originating EdTel calls through the operators, who verbally requested the caller for the number they were calling from. Eventually, the companies agreed on a more compensatory arrangement.

The brand name Telus was first used in 1990 as a new name for the former AGT after it was privatized by the Alberta provincial government. In 1995, Telus purchased Edmonton Telephones Corporation from the City of Edmonton, ending the era of government-owned telecommunications carriers in Alberta and continuing the deregulation of the telecommunications market already in progress. This deregulation also led to competition from such companies as Rogers Communications, Bell Canada, Primus Canada, and many others; at the same time, rapidly emerging technologies such as cellular phones, fibre networks and Internet service forced the new Telus to vastly and quickly broaden its offerings. In 1996, The Telus "master brand" was introduced, bringing products and companies under one unified identity. The ED TEL and AGT brands were retired.[1]

A new iteration of Telus was formed in January 1999 via the merger of General Telephone and Electronics (now part of Verizon Communications) subsidiary BCTel, the former monopoly telecommunications service provider in British Columbia, and the Alberta-only version of Telus. Although BCTel was the larger of the two merging companies the new entity decided to retain the Telus name, abandoning the regional limitations of the BCTel brand, while expanding its reach to compete on a national and international scale. Telus also moved most administration functions to Alberta to take advantage of lower taxes and a less union-oriented work force. The new Telus, however, moved its headquarters to Burnaby, BC, the former headquarters of BCTel.

Up until 2000, Telus and its predecessors AGT and BCTel had been partners with seven other Canadian telephone companies in what began as the Trans-Canada Telephone System, became Telecom Canada, and was now the Stentor Alliance. In 2000, Telus decided to compete with Bell Canada, causing the Stentor Alliance to dissolve. Bell Canada, in turn, went into Telus territories to compete. Telus has fared somewhat better in the deal, acquiring more customers in Central and Eastern Canada than Bell has acquired in the West. Oddly enough, Telus has an agreement with Bell to use their Towers in Central and Eastern Canada, and Bell uses Telus's towers in the West.

In March 2000, Telus obtained a controlling interest in QuébecTel, a local service provider in southern Quebec (QuebecTel had previously been owned, together with BCTel, by Anglo-Canadian Telephone Company, which in turn was a subsidiary of General Telephone and Electronics of Connecticut). Later that year, Telus made a C$6.6-billion acquisition of Clearnet Communications, a digital mobile telephone provider using the same CDMA cellular network technology as Telus based in Toronto, Ontario, which it combined with Telus Mobility to form a wireless telecommunications service provider with national scope. Telus attempted to further expand its reach into the wireless communications sector in May 2004 when, through its wireless division, the company made a curious $1.1-billion bid for Microcell Telecommunications (holders of Fido, a GSM network and thus not compatible with the CDMA network deployed by Telus). Telus was eventually outbid by Rogers, a Canadian cable and media firm. Telus briefly flirted with the idea of acquiring Bell Canada Enterprises in June 2007, but the idea was dropped a few days later, citing "The inadequacies of BCE's bid process." ^[1]

Labour dispute

Main article: Telecommunications Workers Union

Telus' labour dispute with the Telecommunications Workers Union (TWU) began after the previous contract negotiated with BCTel before the two merged expired at the end of 2000. After Telus made its final offer to the TWU, it informed the union of its intention to bring an end to the dispute by unilaterally implementing its April offer to employees in Alberta and British Columbia. The union set up pickets the next day.

Telus and the union reached and ratified a tentative agreement^[2] on November 18, 2005, ending the dispute.

Pornography sales

On January 8, 2007, Telus, Canada's second-largest telecommunications company also became the first North American wireless company to offer its own in-house pay-per-download pornography sales via cellphone. Telus made the explicit pictures and videos of full nude and partially nude men and women available to its cellphone customers across Canada for approximately $3 and $4 per download.^[3]

Industry analysts considered it a landmark move.^[4] No other wireless company in North America had attempted to cross that moral boundary and begin its own in-house pornography sales.

Before making the move into its own pornography sales, Telus research had found that 20% of search terms entered by subscribers on their mobile browsers were intended to find adult content. 13 of the top 25 sites being accessed were hard-core pornography sites.^[5]

On February 9, 2007, Catholic Archbishop Raymond Roussin, who represents 400,000 Catholics in the Vancouver area, called on the 130 local parishes and schools in his archdiocese to consider cancelling their Telus contracts to protest the adult content. Telus defended the service as "responsible" because users must first prove they're adults.

In a February 12, 2007 issue of The B.C. Catholic, Archbishop Roussin, a Telus customer himself, denounced Telus for selling pornography.^[6]

On February 19, 2007, the Globe and Mail published an editorial calling Telus a "Purveyor of Porn."^[7] There were numerous print and broadcast stories about the company's decision to sell pornography, including one in the New York Times.^[8]

After customers, including the Catholic church threatened to cancel their service, Telus announced on February 20, 2007 that it was discontinuing sales of adult content to subscribers.^[9]

In the February 22, 2007 edition of the Globe and Mail, Janet Yale, Telus Executive Vice-President of Corporate Affairs was quoted as saying “We heard from a broad range of customers … who made it clear they were not supportive of this initiative."^[10] But speaking to the New York Times, a Telus spokesman would not rule out a return to the business.^[11]

Services

Telus residential services include copper-based POTS, ADSL and IPTV services in Western Canada. Its business offerings are currently expanding to high-speed data-access lines and managed services including network management over enterprise fibre optic NGN and time-division multiplexing WAN core. One of Telus' highest-profile clients is the Toronto-Dominion Bank.

Television

In late 2005, Telus launched IPTV services, branded as Telus TV, in Edmonton and Calgary, with plans to expand availability to other areas of its service territory, to compete with local cable and satellite TV services. In late 2006, they expanded the availability to some parts of the Greater Vancouver Area. For technical reasons, IPTV subscribers must be able to attain a 8 Mbit/s download speed.

Cellular network

Telus employs the CDMA2000 standard for their cellular network, and its 3G EV-DO network has since been deployed and marketed as "broadband on the fly".

Telus also operates an iDEN network inherited from Clearnet, based on proprietary Motorola technology; the service is branded as Mike, targeted primarily at businesses subscribers in part due to its Direct Connect feature which offers no latency compared to PTT over CDMA.

Some of the mobile phones carried by Telus have media features such as a rudimentary camera or MP3 player. Telus offers music and TV as well as the recently announced partnerships with XM radio services for mobile phones via its 3G network branded as "SPARK" services.

Telus Mobility offers a number of phones for use on its consumer CDMA network, and its business iDEN network. Phones from brands such as LG, Motorola, Nokia, Samsung and others are available, as well as smartphones or PDAs from Audiovox, UTStarcom (a subsidiary of Audiovox), RIM (maker of the BlackBerry), Motorola, HTC and others.

Much like Verizon Wireless, file and media transfer features are intentionally limited on most handset models to prevent users from using their existing media as display pictures, ringtones, and applications, forcing subscribers to incur additional wireless data charges if they wish to utilizing functions advertised. Telus also implements its own proprietary user interface on most if not all of its models.

Advertising

Telus uses the slogan "the future is friendly" as a marketing slogan, frequently appearing at the end of their commercials and as part of their print material. Telus is also known for its advertisements featuring vibrantly coloured animals against a white background. The slogan and style were adopted from Clearnet following its acquisition by Telus. The success of these ads in establishing the Clearnet brand is cited as an incentive in Telus' purchase of Clearnet[2] in 2000.

The first of the Clearnet ads to include animals appeared in 1999[3], the creative side of which was the work of TAXI Advertising & Design in Toronto. The initial campaign starred a red-eyed tree frog leaping free of a jar (the frog's escape symbolizing the freedom one might have in owning a mobile phone versus a traditional land-based phone line). Then, a lizard was used as a mascot, also to promote mobile phones. Subsequently, the series took a creative shift when Terry Drummond and Alan Madill of TAXI began their work on the account, creating "Disco Duck"[4] in 2000 in response to the demand for a "fresh variation on the advertising imagery" to promote Clearnet's "Pay & Talk" prepaid cellular service.

For the Christmas season in 2005, a popular ad campaign was launched involving a hippopotamus named Hazina from the Greater Vancouver Zoo, accompanied by the song "I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas". Telus pledged $10,000 towards the building of a new habitat for Hazina, and following the success of the advertising campaign at Christmas, announced a plan in February 2006 to make available for 'adoption' plush hippopotamus toys through Telus dealers, with all proceeds from BC going towards Hazina and all proceeds from Alberta going towards the hippopotamus at the Calgary Zoo. The campaign raised an additional $20,000 for the Vancouver Zoo's hippopotamus enclosure. (The following June, it was alleged by the local SPCA that the old facility, which was still in use at that time, was inadequate, and charges of animal cruelty were laid against the zoo.)

Sponsorship

Telus sponsors a minor league baseball stadium in downtown Edmonton called the Telus Field. Built in 1995, it was home to the now-defunct Edmonton Trappers of the Pacific Coast League and is now home to the Edmonton Cracker-Cats of the independent Northern League. Telus also donated $9 million to Science World in Vancouver under the terms that it was to be renamed Telus World of Science, $9 million to the Calgary Science Centre, and $8.2 million to the Odyssium in Edmonton; all three science museums were subsequently renamed as TELUS World of Science.^[12]

Annually, Telus sponsors the TELUS World Ski & Snowboard Festival in Whistler, British Columbia. In addition, during the 2004/2005 season, Telus also sponsored the construction of the Telus Park at Big White Ski Resort in Kelowna. As well as at Big White, Telus has also sponsored other terrain parks at ski resorts such as the Telus Park at Lake Louise Mountain Resort in Banff. In 2007, Telus sponsored the Crankworx mountain bike festival.

Since 2000, TELUS and its team members have contributed more than $91 million to charitable and non-profit organizations and volunteered more than 1.7 million hours of service to local communities.^{[13][14][15][16]}

See also

• BCTel
• Mike

References

• "Canadian Catholics Score Victory Over Telus", National Catholic Register (February 27 2007)

External links

• Telus
• Telus Mobility
• Telus Québec
• Telus International
• TELUS CEO Darren Entwisle at 2007 AGM
• TELUS AGM 2007, Montreal video clip
• Comprehensive review of TELUS TV

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