Is the future friendly?
While discussing the importance of mobility in the future, I thought it would be interesting to look at one of the local companies that has had a huge impact and will continue to have a huge impact on the Canadian Tech landscape. The company’s roots have always involved competition, starting with two competing Alberta telephone companies,Â? Alberta Government Telephones (AGT) and EdTel, owned by the city of Edmonton. With the adoption of the new name, Telus, in 1990, and the privatization of the company in 1995, Telus was introduced to a variety of new competitors, including Rogers Communications, Bell Canada, and Primus Canada. At the time, technology was developing quickly, and the telephone company was forced to expand into new offerings like cellular phones, fibre networks, and Internet. With the merger between Telus and BCTel (the larger of the two companies), Telus becomeÂ? the dominant telecommunications company in Western Canada, and was in a good position to compete nationally.
As a company that provides every service that will be significant in the future, Telus is one of the companies that should continue to benefit from the current trends in the use technology. Although landlines will continue to be phased out, the mobility portion of Telus continues to thrive. With the acquisition of QuebecTel and Clearnet in 2000, Telus has a coast-to-coast presense. Their Internet property, MyTelus.com, is one of the top 100 sites in Canada, and they are the number 2 telecom company in the country.
With such a strong Wireless subscriber base and a well established website, it is quite possible that Telus could leverage the two separate properties to help their business. By implementing a strategy that drives mobile users to their website and their website users to their mobility packages, Telus would provide another reason to switch over to the brand. Digital media provides this opportunity. Although the site currently doesn’t support this type of file sharing, it is relatively easy to implement a new section dedicated to sharing digital media on the site. With access to a userbase of mobile customers, they could easily offer free transfer directly to their site, cover the cost of hosting, and give those users a powerful reason to frequent the site. On the flipside, users of the site could easily find value in that type ofÂ? service, and it could go a long way in convincing users to switch providers, or to choose Telus if they are a first time wireless user.
Despite labour disputes, increased pressure from competition, andÂ? several markets that should be moving closer to saturation, Telus has thrived in the last few years. They have a respectable Internet property (I’ve not commented on it, but they have a Quebec-based portal as well), and mobile users. They’ve evenÂ? started offering IPTV. Telus is one of the companies that should continue to do well as users continue to become moreÂ? comfortable using the many technologies that they offer.