Cogeco
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| Cogeco Inc. | |
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| Type | Public TSX: CGO, TSX: CCA |
| Founded | Trois-Rivières, Quebec (1957)[1] |
| Headquarters | Montreal, Quebec |
| Key people | Louis Audet (CEO), Jan Peeters (Chairman of the Board), Pierre Gagné (CFO) |
| Industry | Media and Communications |
| Products | Cable TV, Internet, Telecommunications, Broadcasting |
| Revenue | ▲$746.9 million CAD (2006)[2] |
| Operating income | ▲$253.1 million CAD (2006) [3] |
| Net income | ▲$23.1 million CAD (2006)[4] |
| Parent | None |
| Subsidiaries | Cogeco Cable (Ontario & Quebec), Cogeco Radio-Television, Cabovisão (Portugal) |
| Website | www.cogeco.ca |
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Cogeco Inc. (TSX: CGO) is a Canadian media and communications company.
The corporation first entered the television business in the mid-1950s with the launch of a Radio-Canada affiliate in Trois-Rivières, CKTM-TV. Later the company expanded with the creation of CKSH-TV in Sherbrooke, a radio network and diversification in the cable television industry.
Currently Cogeco co-owns the TQS network with CTVglobemedia, and eight television stations affiliated with both TQS and Radio-Canada. TQS is pending a sale to Remstar Corporation, and the Radio-Canada affiliates are pending a sale to Radio-Canada itself.
Through its broadcast holdings, Cogeco Cable (TSX: CCA) is a major cable television distributor offering analogue and digital television, as well as high-speed Internet services and VoIP telephony. It is the second largest cable system operator in both Ontario and Quebec, (respectively behind Rogers & Videotron), and the fourth largest in Canada.
Starting in 2006, Cogeco Cable began the process of overhauling their Ontario & Quebec-based Hybrid fibre-coaxial physical plant networks to expand the total amount of bandwidth available. The ability to offer expanded 2-way bi-directional services such as High Definition digital cable, High-Speed Internet and VoIP Digital Telephony and to improve network reliability is the driving force behind this upgrade.
After upgrades are complete, the Ontario network will have 750 MHz of bandwidth and the Quebec network will have 550 MHz of bandwidth. With this capacity, a total of 110 or 83 analogue channels (depending on the network) can be transmitted. Given that each analogue channel occupies 6 MHz of bandwidth, Cogeco utilizes the latest compression, multiplexing and modulation technologies to be able to transmit up to 13 Standard Definition TV signals or else up to 3 High Definition TV signals on each of these channels. [5]
[edit] Digital Services
[edit] Digital Cable Television
Within their Canadian cable operations in Ontario & Quebec, 98% of all homes passed by Cogeco Cable-owned plant are able to access digital cable services, with 90% of homes passed also able to access digital Video on Demand services. Currently, 93% of homes passed also have access to Cogeco Cable's 2-way bi-directional cable plant, giving customers the ability to enjoy High Definition TV programming and High-Speed Internet services. [6]
Cogeco Cable utilizes Motorola-based digital Set Top Boxes (STB's) for delivery of their digital cable services:
Standard Definition STB's:
- DCT700: Composite & Coaxial video outputs. RCA-stereo audio outputs.
- DCT1700: Composite & Coaxial video outputs. RCA-stereo audio outputs.
- DCT1800: Composite & Coaxial video outputs. RCA-stereo audio outputs.
- DCT2000: Composite & Coaxial video outputs. RCA-stereo audio outputs. Front LC display.
- DCT2500: Composite & Coaxial video outputs. SPDIF, Dolby Digital & RCA-stereo audio outputs. Front LC display.
High Definition & Personal Video Recorder STB's:
- DCT6200: DVI, YbpPr Component, S-Video, Composite & Coaxial video outputs. SPDIF, Dolby Digital & RCA-stereo audio outputs. Front LC display.
- DCT6208: DVI, YbpPr Component, S-Video, Composite & Coaxial video outputs. SPDIF, Dolby Digital & RCA-stereo audio outputs. Front LC display. Includes an 80 GB hard drive for PVR functions.
- DCT6412: HDMI, DVI, YbpPr Component, S-Video, Composite & Coaxial video outputs. SPDIF, Dolby Digital & RCA-stereo audio outputs. Front LC display. Includes a 120 GB hard drive for PVR functions. Dual-tuner.
- DCT6416: HDMI, DVI, YbpPr Component, S-Video, Composite & Coaxial video outputs. SPDIF, Dolby Digital & RCA-stereo audio outputs. Front LC display. Includes a 160 GB hard drive for PVR functions. Dual-tuner.
[edit] Internet access
Cogeco Cable utilizes a DOCSIS 1.0 & 1.1-compliant network to provide all of their Internet Protocol (IP)-based services, such as Internet access and VoIP. To position itself as a leader in delivering broadband solutions to its customers, Cogeco Cable became actively involved in the DOCSIS program and was one of the first major cable operators to deploy a DOCSIS-based network. [7]
Since September 2007, Cogeco has enforced strict bandwidth limits after over eight years of ignoring its own regulations. Going over a bandwidth cap will result in almost immediate disconnection for the remainder of the month, with no option to pay for over-usage. While Cogeco says these measures are to protect the usage of casual internet users from heavy downloaders, many have speculated that it is a monopolistic tactic to dissuade users of internet-phone, video conferencing and legal media downloading (online movie rentals, for example) and encourage subscription to Cogeco's VOIP and cable television services. The enforcement angered many users who found themselves disconnected out of the blue. Cogeco representatives have chastised callers to customer support for doing things like watching too many videos on youtube and have suggested users hitting their bandwidth caps carefully monitor all activity they engage in online.[citation needed]
In many areas, Cogeco maintains a de-facto monopoly on cable internet service, offering disgruntled customers no real choice of providers.
Cogeco has also instituted traffic shaping policies, with a recent online study ranking Cogeco second only to Comcast for its network interference. For users of Bittorrent clients, uploading is capped at 3 kilobytes a second, impeding the ability of Cogeco customers to participate in private torrent trackers.
[edit] VoIP Digital Telephony
Cogeco Cable launched their Digital Phone service in June 2005, a VoIP-based telephony service offering customers unlimited local & long distance calling within Canada and to the United States, voice mail, call display, call waiting, visual call waiting, call forwarding, 411-directory assistance, 911-emergency assistance, 611-technical support assistance, 711-message relay services & 0-operator services.
As of October 16, 2006, 70% of all homes passed by Cogeco Cable plant are able to access this service. [8]
[edit] Cogeco-owned stations
[edit] Radio
Except for CJMF, all stations are part of the Hot Adult Contemporary network, Rythme FM.
- Montreal - CFGL-FM 105.7
- Quebec City - CJEC-FM 91.9
- Quebec City - CJMF-FM 93.3
- Sherbrooke - CFGE-FM 93.7
- Trois-Rivières - CJEB-FM 100.1
Cogeco also owned the now-defunct CKO radio network after acquiring AGRA subsidiary Cybermedix in 1989; the network and its stations went dark in November of that year.
[edit] Television
- Montreal - CFJP (TQS)
- Quebec City - CFAP (TQS)
- Saguenay - CFRS (TQS)
- Saguenay - CKTV (SRC)
- Sherbrooke - CFKS (TQS)
- Sherbrooke - CKSH (SRC)
- Trois-Rivières - CFKM (TQS)
- Trois-Rivières - CKTM (SRC)
Cogeco also owns a 20% interest in the French language pay-per-view service Canal Indigo. Although it was announced on March 20, 2008 that Cogeco will be selling its interest in the service to Groupe TVA.
All five TQS-affiliated stations are part of the network's proposed sale to Remstar Corporation. The three SRC affiliates are currently also in the process of being acquired directly by SRC.
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
- Cogeco (mirror link: http://www.cogeco.com)
- CRTC chart of Cogeco's assets
[edit] References
- ^ Cogeco Annual Report 2006. Retrieved on 2007-04-14.
- ^ Cogeco Annual Report 2006. Retrieved on 2007-04-14.
- ^ Cogeco Annual Report 2006. Retrieved on 2007-04-14.
- ^ Cogeco Annual Report 2006. Retrieved on 2007-04-14.
- ^ Cogeco Annual Report 2006 - Page 10. Retrieved on 2007-04-14.
- ^ Cogeco Annual Report 2006 - Page 10. Retrieved on 2007-04-14.
- ^ Cable Television Laboratories Inc. SPECS News & Technology Newsletter, August 2002. Retrieved on 2007-04-14.
- ^ Cogeco Annual Report 2006 - Page 5. Retrieved on 2007-04-14.
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