Telus (NYSE: TU) is expanding its fiber and rural broadband facilities in Calgary and Edmonton as part of a broader plan to spend $676 million throughout Alberta this year.
The telco will invest $121 million U.S. dollars in Calgary and $99.5 million in the Edmonton region. These investments are part of its three-year, $1.93 billion commitment made a year ago to expand services in the region.
A key piece of the new investments will be dedicated to expanding the reach of its GPON-based fiber to the premises (FTTP) Optik service, which currently provides 50 Mbps and supports its IPTV service, Optik TV.
By the end of the year, Telus said Optik TV will be built out to reach almost 90 percent of Alberta households. Telus currently has 712,000 Optik TV customers.
Telus' IPTV moves continue to help drive broadband growth.
Similar to AT&T (NYSE: T) and CenturyLink (NYSE: CTL), Telus reported in Q1 2013 that the 16,000 new broadband Internet subscribers it added "reflect successful promotions and the pull-through effect of Optik TV sales." The telco's high-speed subscriber base of 1.3 million rose 85,000, or 6.8 percent year-over-year.
For more:
- see the release
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