Bell Canada: "Not Telecom as Usual"

The current environment is "not telecom as usual", said Michael Sabia, president and CEO of Bell Canada Enterprises speaking at the company's annual conference for the financial community.


Sabia said Bell Canada intends to migrate 100% of its traffic onto a national IP backbone network within three years, with 90% of its customers having access to a full suite of value-added IP services. He vowed the company would devote all its resources "to capture the full potential of IP based communications."


As for accomplishments in 2003, Bell Canada reorganized into three distinct business units to better serve its customers.


In the consumer segment, Bell Canada is expecting by the end of 2005 to double the number of households that use three or four of its key services. The company will focus on simplicity and service through initiatives such as a unified marketing strategy for all consumer products and services, attractive bundles and one stop shopping. Bell Canada will continue to expand its DSL footprint. It also plans to launch a consumer VOIP market trial in early 2004, and is continuing with its IPTV trials.


For small and medium businesses, Bell Canada hopes over the next two years to double the number of customers with two or more services and to cut in half the time it takes to serve the customers. Initiatives are being planned for moving small and medium business into new technologies such as VoIP and WiFi.


For enterprise customers, Bell Canada is focused on transforming the business from providing connectivity to delivering value-added services to at least 80% of its customers by 2005. The company will develop an IP migration plan for each of its enterprise accounts in 2004.


For 2004, Bell Canada is expecting revenue growth comparable to 2003. The capital intensity (capital expenditures as a percentage of revenues) ratio is expected to be 17% to 18%. DSL net additions are expected to be comparable to those achieved in 2003.
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