Telus

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

Telus (TSX: T, NYSE: TU) is a Canadian telecommunications company, the country's second-largest telecommunications carrier after Bell Canada, with C$8.4 billion of annual revenue, 4.7 million network access lines, 1.05 million Internet subscribers, and 4.5 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, most of 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' internal documentation.

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, EdTel, 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 EdTel 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 B.C.Tel -- 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.^{[citation needed]} Bell Canada, in turn, went into Telus territories to compete.

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 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 Telus Mobility 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 one used by Telus). Telus was eventually outbid by Rogers, a Canadian media firm.

Labour dispute

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 last 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, effective on July 22. The union set up pickets on July 21.

Telus and the union reached a tentative agreement on October 10. On October 30, union membership voted against ratification, with 50.3% of voting members voting against. A second tentative agreement was reached, and on November 18, 2005, the contract was ratified with 64.1% support, ending the dispute.

Adult content sales via cellphones

On January 8, 2007, Telus became the first North American telecommunications company to sell adult content via cellphone. Telus began making pictures of nude and partially nude men and women available to its 5.1 million cellphone customers across Canada for approximately $3 per download.

The position of Telus was that it was legal under Canadian law to market the “adult content” it was selling and that it was acting as a responsible corporate citizen by instituting age verification in its pornography sales.

In a February 12, 2007 issue of The B.C. Catholic, the Archbishop of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Vancouver, Raymond Roussin, a Telus customer himself, denounced Telus for selling pornography. On February 16, 2007, the Archbishop instructed archdiocesan organizations not to renew their cellphone contracts with Telus.

In light of a further backlash from customers and other religious leaders, Telus announced on February 20, 2007 that it was dropping its sales of so-called “adult content” to subscribers.

In the February 21, 2007 Globe and Mail newspaper, Janet Yale, executive vice-president of corporate affairs at Telus was quoted as saying “We heard from a broad range of customers … who made it clear they were not supportive of this initiative."

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 fiber optic NGN and time-division multiplexing WAN core. One of Telus' highest-profile clients is TD 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 subscribe to Telus's 1.5 Mbps or 3.0 Mbps ADSL Internet and Landline service.

Cellular network

Telus employs the CDMA2000 standard for their cellular network, and its 3G EvDO network has since been deployed and marketed as "broadband on the fly". Telus has also been involved in a controversy similar to that of the American telecom firm Verizon, where it crippled the Bluetooth function of its mobile phones and devices, forcing customers to access its network more often and thus increasing charges and revenue. (Verizon has since been sued for false advertising, but continues the same practice today.)

Some of the mobile phones carried by Telus have media features such as a 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".

Telus also operates an iDEN network inherited from Clearnet, based on proprietary technology by Motorola; the service is branded as Mike and is targeted primarily at businesses, rather than individual subscribers, in part due to its PTT features. (iDEN, on which WiDEN is built, is also the basis for Nextel's service in the United States, prior to that company's merger with CDMA-based Sprint PCS to become Sprint Nextel. From a cellular network technology perspective, this merger is comparable to Telus' acquisition of Clearnet.)

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, RIM (maker of the BlackBerry), Motorola, and others.

Advertising

Telus uses the slogan "the future is friendly" as a marketing catchphrase, frequently appearing at the end of their commercials and as part of their print materials. Telus is also known for its advertisements featuring vibrantly coloured animals against a white background. The slogan and style were adopted from the wireless company 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]. As of 2007, Telus is continuing the series, regularly introducing variations on the theme.

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. At this point, the tone of the series changed from the serene nature motif employed by Clearnet to warm potential customers to their products and services, to a more whimsical style, still using real animals but in less realistic ways. Clearnet was purchased by Telus in 2000, soon after the appearance of Disco Duck, and Telus has since maintained the new approach, using animals such as pigs, hippopotamuses, koala bears, and parrots in their ads.

For the Christmas season in 2005, a popular ad campaign was launched involving Hazina, a hippopotamus 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, $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. Additionally, during the 2004/2005 season, Telus also sponsored the construction of the Telus Park at Big White Ski Resort in Kelowna.

Corporate governance

As of October 2005, the current members of the company's board of directors are, in alphabetical order:

References

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

External links