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Vidéotron is a Canadian integrated telecommunications company active in cable television,
interactive Across the many fields concerned with interactivity, including information science, computer science, human-computer interaction, communication, and industrial design, there is little agreement over the meaning of the term "interactivity", but mo ...
multimedia development, video on demand, cable telephony, wireless communication and
Internet access Internet access is the ability of individuals and organizations to connect to the Internet using computer terminals, computers, and other devices; and to access services such as email and the World Wide Web. Internet access is sold by Internet ...
services. Owned by Quebecor, it primarily serves Quebec and
Ottawa Ottawa (, ; Canadian French: ) is the capital city of Canada. It is located at the confluence of the Ottawa River and the Rideau River in the southern portion of the province of Ontario. Ottawa borders Gatineau, Quebec, and forms the core ...
, as well as the Francophone communities of New Brunswick and some parts of Eastern Ontario. Its principal competitors are
Bell Canada Bell Canada (commonly referred to as Bell) is a Canadian telecommunications company headquartered at 1 Carrefour Alexander-Graham-Bell in the borough of Verdun in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It is an ILEC (incumbent local exchange carrier) in t ...
and Telus Communications. Vidéotron is the fifth-largest wireless carrier in Canada, with nearly 1,700,000 mobile subscribers as of Q2 2022.


History

Vidéotron was established in 1964, under the name "Télécâble Vidéotron Ltée" as northern Montreal's first cable television network. It started with 66 subscribers. André Chagnon served as the company's founding president. From 1966 to 1969, Vidéotron expanded by acquiring several cable networks in many regions of the province of Quebec. In 1969, the company offered the first pay-per-view service under the name ''Sélecto-TV''. In 1974, a bi-directional network was created in
Saint-Jérôme Saint-Jérôme () ( 2021 population 80,213) is a suburban city located about northwest of Montreal on the Rivière du Nord. It is part of the Montreal of Greater Montreal. It is a gateway to the Laurentian Mountains and its resorts via the ...
, one of the first in the world at the time. By 1980, Vidéotron acquired Câblevision Nationale to become the largest teledistributor in Quebec. Vidéotron acquired Télé-Métropole in 1986, the largest private French-language television company in North America. In 1989 the company opened the first video rental stores: Le SuperClub Vidéotron. Its first fiber optic network was created between the cities of Quebec and Montreal. On January 24, 1990, Vidéotron launched terminals in Quebec, the first interactive television (ITV) system in North America. From 1995, the company entered the Internet era and acquired its own Internet portal, InfiniT.com. In 1997,
CF Cable TV CF Cable TV was a Canadian cable company in the 1980s and 1990s. Owned by Jean Pouliot, a businessman in Montreal, Quebec whose holdings also included CFCF-TV"CFCF issue is proving attractive to investors". ''The Globe and Mail'', June 18, 1985. an ...
, which operated primarily on the western end of the Island of Montreal, southern Laval and Northern Ontario, was acquired by Vidéotron, further expanding its base. The Northern Ontario division was later sold to Regional Cablesystems. On March 29, 1999, the company launched digital television in Montreal. By the start of the 21st century, Rogers Communications struck an accord with the Chagnon family to purchase Vidéotron. However, citing cultural sovereignty concerns, the second-largest shareholder invoked its right to veto the purchase. Quebecor acquired Vidéotron instead, after months of legal proceedings. On May 23, 2001, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) approved the transfer of broadcasting licences from Vidéotron to Quebecor. Video-on-demand and high-definition television became available in 2003. Vidéotron launched their wireless service in August 2006 and, two years later the company announced the launch of two new internet access services: Ultimate Speed Internet 30 and Ultimate Speed Internet 50 which deliver speeds of 30 Mbit/s and 50 Mbit/s respectively. In the spring of 2010, Vidéotron launched IllicoWeb, an online television and video-on-demand service. In September, it launched a 3G+ wireless service, with plans to offer a quadruple play service with its existing cable services. On December 30, 2017, assets from Vidéotron G.P. were transferred to Vidéotron Ltée, as the company underwent a corporate reorganization. In September 2018, Vidéotron began beta testing for Fizz, a discount
flanker brand In marketing, a fighter brand (sometimes called a fighting brand or a flanker brand) is a lower-priced offering launched by a company to take on, and ideally take out, specific competitors that are attempting to under-price them. Unlike traditional ...
on its network. On August 27, 2019, Vidéotron launched Helix, a new Internet and IPTV service based on
Comcast Comcast Corporation (formerly known as American Cable Systems and Comcast Holdings),Before the AT&T merger in 2001, the parent company was Comcast Holdings Corporation. Comcast Holdings Corporation now refers to a subsidiary of Comcast Corpora ...
's X1 platform.


Services

Vidéotron serves 1,830,400 cable television customers, including over 1,517,600 digital cable subscribers. Vidéotron also has more than 1,408,200 high-speed cable Internet subscribers, the most in Quebec. As of September 2013, the company had activated 478,000 mobile phones, and was providing cable telephone service to nearly 1,281,200 customers. Vidéotron's cable services are available in the greater areas of Montreal, Quebec City,
Gatineau Gatineau ( ; ) is a city in western Quebec, Canada. It is located on the northern bank of the Ottawa River, immediately across from Ottawa, Ontario. Gatineau is the largest city in the Outaouais administrative region and is part of Canada's N ...
, Sherbrooke, Trois-Rivières and Saguenay. Vidéotron also serves areas in eastern Ontario, such as
Rockland Rockland may refer to: People *Per Bergsland, nicknamed Peter Rockland, one of three successful escapees from Stalag Luft III (the "Great Escape") Places ;In Canada *Rockland, Greater Victoria *Rockland, Nova Scotia *Rockland, Ontario ;In the Uni ...
and the surrounding municipality of
Clarence-Rockland Clarence-Rockland is a city in Eastern Ontario, Canada, in the United Counties of Prescott and Russell on the Ottawa River. Clarence-Rockland is located immediately to the east of Ottawa and is considered part of the Prescott and Russell County. ...
, as well as parts of New Brunswick near the Quebec border. Vidéotron's cable community channels are branded as MAtv. Vidéotron cable services were once also available in the United Kingdom, but were acquired and merged into Cable & Wireless plc along with Bell Cablemedia and NYNEX Corporation in 1997. The company also used to operate in Africa and the United States. One of its previous subsidiaries – Videotron Telecom (not to be confused with Videotron Mobile) – was financed by the Carlyle Group. Vidéotron has provided telecommunication services to business and governments since the integration of Vidéotron Télécom into Vidéotron Ltée. The services include dark fiber, SONET, ATM, and Ethernet links as well as video circuits used by various Quebec television networks.


Television

Vidéotron operates various type of television services. They include analogue cable TV, Illico TV, a digital cable television provider, Club Illico, an over-the-top subscription video-on-demand service and Helix TV, an
Internet Protocol television 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 media, ...
provider. The latter service requires Helix Internet. The core Illico and Helix TV package is Basic (La Base), which includes 23 basic channels and is comparable to competitors' Starter packages. Basic includes MAtv, a brand of community channels that is exclusive to Vidéotron. Other current packages (Light/Le Léger, Discovery/La Découverte, Sports Discovery/La Découverte Sports, Discovery Plus/La Découverte Plus, Show Time/Fan De Films, Sports Fan/Fan De Sports, All-In/La Totale and Absolute/Plein La Vue) include all channels from Basic, plus 5 to 32 '' à la carte'' TV channels. Club Illico has produced various original comedy and drama series, including ''
Escouade 99 ''Escouade 99'' (translation from French: ''Squad 99'') is a French-language police procedural comedy television series produced for Club Illico streaming service, based on '' Brooklyn Nine-Nine'' originally created by Dan Goor and Michael Sch ...
'' and ''
The Night Logan Woke Up ''The Night Logan Woke Up'' (french: La nuit où Laurier Gaudreault s'est réveillé) is a Canadian thriller drama limited television series, directed by Xavier Dolan and released in 2022.T'Cha Dunlevy"Xavier Dolan reawakens fans' interest with fi ...
(La nuit où Laurier Gaudreault s'est réveillé)''.


Cable telephone service

On July 29, 2004, Vidéotron announced plans to launch a telephone service using VoIP technology by the first half of 2005. Vidéotron launched its cable phone service in late 2004 to compete with Bell Canada and Telus. Deployment of this service started on Montreal's South Shore. By press release on January 24, 2005, Vidéotron announced that 300,000 customers on Montreal's South Shore had access to this service and that deployment would continue all over Quebec throughout 2005. Vidéotron also announced that about 2,500 customers had already subscribed to this service, following a trial conducted in the fall of 2004. Vidéotron was also the first cable provider in Canada to launch a cable phone service.


Mobile network

In July 2008, Videotron ltée and Quebecor acquired spectrum licences for advanced wireless services from an
Industry Canada Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada (ISED; french: Innovation, Sciences et Développement économique Canada; french: ISDE, label=none)''Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada'' is the applied title under the Federal I ...
auction at a total cost of $554,559,000. The licences cover Quebec for an average of 40 MHz spectrum, Toronto with 10 MHz and south-east Ontario. The network was launched on September 9, 2010. Infrastructure work for a pre-4G
HSPA+ Evolved High Speed Packet Access, HSPA+, HSPA (Plus) or HSPAP, is a technical standard for wireless broadband telecommunication. It is the second phase of HSPA which has been introduced in 3GPP release 7 and being further improved in later 3GPP ...
wireless network was done over the span of three years, Videotron now having its own cellular communications resources. Vidéotron was the only provider in Canada that sold the short-lived Garmin
Nuvifone A50 The Garmin Nüvifone A50 was a line of Internet-enabled mobile phones and personal navigation devices manufactured by Garmin and Asus in partnership, first released in 2010. It has a touchscreen with virtual keyboards and buttons. Availability I ...
smartphone. In 2013, Rogers and Vidéotron struck a 20-year deal, enabling Vidéotron to share its network with Rogers Wireless. This network sharing agreement enabled Vidéotron to deploy
LTE LTE may refer to: Science and technology * LTE (telecommunication) (Long-Term Evolution), a telephone and mobile broadband standard ** LTE Advanced, an enhancement *** LTE Advanced Pro * Compaq LTE, a line of laptop computers produced by Compaq * ...
on its network in Quebec in 2014, in partnership with Rogers. The agreement also enabled Vidéotron customers to use the Rogers Wireless network as a Vidéotron partner network in order to allow texts to be sent or received, calls to be made and for data to be used across Canada. In 2016, Vidéotron revamped its plans, allowing customers to make unlimited calls, send and receive texts and use data in the United States as well, due to partnerships with US carriers. Vidéotron began beta testing in 2018 for a new mid-range mobile
flanker brand In marketing, a fighter brand (sometimes called a fighting brand or a flanker brand) is a lower-priced offering launched by a company to take on, and ideally take out, specific competitors that are attempting to under-price them. Unlike traditional ...
, Fizz Mobile, in Quebec and in Ottawa.


Technical support

The major centers are located in Montreal, Longueuil, Quebec City, Gatineau, Joliette, Saguenay and St-Hubert. Vidéotron also has outsourced customer service centers that include Utopia, Gexel Telecom and Atelka. In 2007, Videotron formed a partnership with Xceed Contact Center to outsource some of the call centers to Egypt.


Controversy


High-Speed Extreme Internet

On August 14, 2007, Videotron announced starting October 1 they would impose a 100-gigabyte-per-month download/ upload limit with a penalty of $1.50 per extra gigabyte to their previously unrestricted High-Speed Extreme Internet service, even to existing subscribers. This decision created outrage among its Internet users, and led to a
class action suit A class action, also known as a class-action lawsuit, class suit, or representative action, is a type of lawsuit where one of the parties is a group of people who are represented collectively by a member or members of that group. The class action ...
against Videotron by consumer advocacy group Union des Consommateurs. In September 2013, the court authorized the suit to proceed.


See also

*
List of Canadian mobile phone companies As of March 2021, there are over 33 million wireless subscriptions in Canada. Approximately 90% of Canadian mobile phone users subscribe to one of the four largest national telecommunication companies (Rogers Wireless, Bell Mobility, Freedom Mob ...
* List of internet service providers in Canada


References


External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Videotron Cable and DBS companies of Canada Quebecor Internet service providers of Canada Companies based in Montreal Mobile phone companies of Canada Canadian companies established in 1964 Telecommunications companies established in 1964 1964 establishments in Quebec