Cogeco Inc. is a Canadian

telecommunication Telecommunication is the transmission of information by various types of technologies over wire, radio, optical, or other electromagnetic systems. It has its origin in the desire of humans for communication over a distance greater than that fe ...

s and

media Media may refer to: Communication * Media (communication), tools used to deliver information or data ** Advertising media, various media, content, buying and placement for advertising ** Broadcast media, communications delivered over mass e ...

company. Its corporate offices are located at 1 Place Ville-Marie in

Montreal Montreal ( ; officially Montréal, ) is the second-most populous city in Canada and most populous city in the Canadian province of Quebec. Founded in 1642 as '' Ville-Marie'', or "City of Mary", it is named after Mount Royal, the triple ...

, Quebec. The company is structured into three

strategic business unit A strategic business unit (SBU) in business strategic management, is a profit center which focuses on product offering and market segment. SBUs typically have a discrete marketing plan, analysis of competition, and marketing campaign, even though t ...

s (SBU); Cogeco Connexion,

Breezeline Breezeline (previously Atlantic Broadband) is the trade name for the United States operations of Cogeco Communications, constituting the 8th largest cable operator in the United States, based on the number of television service customers served. ...

(previously known as Atlantic Broadband), and Cogeco Media. The company provides a range of telecommunication products and services including cable television, radio and television broadcasting, telephony, and Internet services in

Ontario Ontario ( ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada.Ontario is located in the geographic eastern half of Canada, but it has historically and politically been considered to be part of Central Canada. Located in Central C ...

and

Quebec Quebec ( ; )According to the Canadian government, ''Québec'' (with the acute accent) is the official name in Canadian French and ''Quebec'' (without the accent) is the province's official name in Canadian English is one of the thirtee ...

in Canada, and in eleven states along the east coast of the United States. Cogeco Inc. is a publicly traded company () and is controlled through multiple voting shares (accounting for 71.29% of votes) by the Audet family's

holding company A holding company is a company whose primary business is holding a controlling interest in the securities of other companies. A holding company usually does not produce goods or services itself. Its purpose is to own shares of other companies ...

Gestion Audem Inc. In turn, Cogeco Inc. fully owns Cogeco Media, and owns 82.96% of the voting rights in Cogeco Communications Inc., a separate publicly traded company () which owns the Canadian and U.S. cable and telecom operations. The name Cogeco is an

acronym An acronym is a word or name formed from the initial components of a longer name or phrase. Acronyms are usually formed from the initial letters of words, as in ''NATO'' (''North Atlantic Treaty Organization''), but sometimes use syllables, as ...

for Compagnie Générale de Communication ("General Communications Company").

History

In June 1957, Henri Audet (1918-2012) left the

Canadian Broadcasting Corporation The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (french: Société Radio-Canada), branded as CBC/Radio-Canada, is a Canadian public broadcaster for both radio and television. It is a federal Crown corporation that receives funding from the government. ...

(CBC), became president and managing director of Télévision St. Maurice Inc., and was awarded a broadcasting license by the

Canadian Radio Broadcasting Commission The Canadian Radio Broadcasting Commission (CRBC), also referred to as the Canadian Radio Commission (CRC), was Canada's first public broadcaster and the immediate precursor to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. Origins The CRBC was establis ...

(CRBC) to operate a television station in

Trois-Rivières Trois-Rivières (, – 'Three Rivers') is a city in the Mauricie administrative region of Quebec, Canada, at the confluence of the Saint-Maurice and Saint Lawrence rivers, on the north shore of the Saint Lawrence River across from the city of ...

, Quebec. The

call sign In broadcasting and radio communications, a call sign (also known as a call name or call letters—and historically as a call signal—or abbreviated as a call) is a unique identifier for a transmitter station. A call sign can be formally assign ...

would be CKTM-TV, and it would become an affiliate of the CBC's French-language network. Télévision St. Maurice Inc''.'' was later renamed Cogéco Radio-Télévision Inc''.'', a subsidiary of Cogeco Inc. He would also become chairman and president of La Belle Vision Inc''.'', which was in 1972, Cogeco's first acquisition. Henri Audet was chairman and CEO of Cogeco Inc. between 1976 and 1993, and later in 1996, was named President Emeritus of Cogeco Inc. and Cogeco Cable Inc. Over time the company divested itself of all its on-air broadcast television assets. In 1989, the company obtained its initial presence in Ontario by acquiring cable systems in Burlington and Oakville and in 1996 expanded further in Ontario by acquiring an additional 25 cable systems (303,000 customers for CA$350 million) from

Rogers Communications Rogers Communications Inc. is a Canadian communications and media company operating primarily in the fields of wireless communications, cable television, telephony and Internet, with significant additional telecommunications and mass media ass ...

. Between 1998 and 2001, Cogeco increased its footprint in both Quebec and Ontario with the acquisition of an additional 19 cable systems. In a turn of events, in 2009, and again in 2010, Rogers invested substantially in both Cogeco Inc. and Cogeco Cable Inc., resulting in some speculation surrounding the two rivals. In 2011, the company increased its radio station assets by acquiring

Corus Québec Corus Québec, until May 2005 Radiomédia, was a French-language Canadian news/talk radio network serving most of Quebec. The network and most of its affiliates were owned by Toronto-based Corus Entertainment. Stations The network had four co-flag ...

, a subsidiary of

Corus Entertainment Corus Entertainment Inc. is a Canadian mass media company. Formed in 1999 as a spin-off from Shaw Communications, it has prominent holdings in the radio, publishing, and television industries. It is headquartered at Corus Quay in Toronto, Onta ...

, and in 2018 acquired additional radio stations from RNC Média, giving it a total of twenty-two radio stations in Quebec and one in Ontario. Also that year, the company purchased Métromédia for CA$41 million to later sell it in 2018 to

Bell Media Bell Media Inc. (French: ) is a Canadian company formed by the amalgamation of several companies. Establishment (2011–13) On December 9, 2011, the Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan announced the sale of its majority stake in Maple Leaf Sports ...

for an undisclosed amount. In February 2012, the company also sold its cable system Cabovisão in Portugal to the European media group Altice. In July 2012, the company expanded into the U.S. market by acquiring the cable system operator

Atlantic Broadband Breezeline (previously Atlantic Broadband) is the trade name for the United States operations of Cogeco Communications, constituting the 8th largest cable operator in the United States, based on the number of television service customers served ...

. In December that same year, it acquired Peer 1 Hosting, an internet infrastructure provider, and later in October 2015, merged it with its Cogeco Data Services, forming a new subsidiary called Cogeco Peer 1. In January 2018, Cogeco Communications Inc. announced that its US subsidiary Atlantic Broadband had completed the acquisition of the cable systems owned by Harron Communications which were operating under the brand name MetroCast for US$1.4 billion, making the company the eight largest hybrid fibre coaxial cable operator in North America. In February 2019, the company announced it sold Cogeco Peer 1 to private equity firm Digital Colony for CA$720 million. Cogeco Peer 1 later changed its name to

Aptum Technologies Aptum Technologies, formerly Cogeco Peer 1, is a provider of services for data centers and cloud computing.2016 Annual Report." Retrieved November 7, 2016. The company is headquartered in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. History Peer 1 Network Enterp ...

. On September 2, 2020,

Altice USA Altice USA, Inc., commonly known as Altice, is an American cable television provider with headquarters in New York City. It delivers pay television, Internet access, telephone services, and original television content to approximately 4.9 mill ...

announced an unsolicited offer to purchase both Cogeco and Cogeco Communications. Altice announced it would immediately resell Cogeco's Canadian assets to Rogers, which retains large minority interests in both Cogeco companies, while Altice would keep Cogeco's U.S. assets including Atlantic Broadband. Cogeco's controlling shareholders, the Audet family, indicated shortly thereafter that they would not support the offer. It was also rejected by the companies'

boards of directors A board of directors (commonly referred simply as the board) is an executive committee that jointly supervises the activities of an organization, which can be either a for-profit or a nonprofit organization such as a business, nonprofit organi ...

, and

Quebec Premier The premier of Quebec (French: ''premier ministre du Québec'' (masculine) or ''première ministre du Québec'' (feminine)) is the head of government of the Canadian province of Quebec. The current premier of Quebec is François Legault of th ...

François Legault François Legault (; born May 26, 1957) is a Canadian politician serving as the 32nd premier of Quebec since 2018. A member of the Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ), he has led the party since its founding in 2011. Legault sits as a member of the ...

had also signalled his opposition to losing another major Quebec-based company. Altice and Rogers said they would continue to pursue a purchase, with Rogers promising to maintain a separate management team and regional headquarters for its Quebec operations. In October 2020, Altice made a second offer, increasing it to CA$11.1 billion in cash, which was again rejected by the Audet family. The offer expired that November. Following the acquisition of systems in Ohio in 2021, Atlantic Broadband rebranded as

in early 2022.

Digital services

Digital cable television

Within its Canadian cable operations in Ontario and Quebec, 98% of all homes passed by Cogeco Cable-owned plant are able to access digital cable services. In August 2018, Cogeco announced that it would convert its cablesystems to

IPTV Internet Protocol television (IPTV) is the delivery of television content over Internet Protocol (IP) networks. This is in contrast to delivery through traditional terrestrial, satellite, and cable television formats. Unlike downloaded med ...

using MediaKind platforms.

Internet access

Cogeco Cable was one of the first major cable operators to deploy its network compliant with the Data Over Cable Service Interface Specification (DOCSIS) standard to provide all of its

Internet Protocol The Internet Protocol (IP) is the network layer communications protocol in the Internet protocol suite for relaying datagrams across network boundaries. Its routing function enables internetworking, and essentially establishes the Internet. ...

(IP) based services, such as internet access and

VoIP Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), also called IP telephony, is a method and group of technologies for the delivery of voice communications and multimedia sessions over Internet Protocol (IP) networks, such as the Internet. The terms Internet t ...

as early as 2002. In April 2009, Cogeco implemented a penalty for surpassing the bandwidth limits for each tier. As of August 2021, Cogeco offers up to gigabit download speeds (30Mbit/s upload) in certain areas which takes advantage of its DOCSIS 3.1 platform upgrades and 180Mbit/s download (10Mbit/s upload) most of its footprint on DOCSIS 3.0.

VoIP digital telephony

Cogeco Cable launched its digital phone service in June 2005, a

-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 and 0-operator services.

References

External links

Official website

Facebook page

Twitter account

History of Cogeco Inc. - Canadian Communication Foundation

{{Morningstar National Bank Québec Index Companies listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange Companies based in Montreal Cable and DBS companies of Canada Internet service providers of Canada Telecommunications companies established in 1957 1957 establishments in Quebec