Mountain Cable was one of three

cable television Cable television is a system of delivering television programming to consumers via radio frequency (RF) signals transmitted through coaxial cables, or in more recent systems, light pulses through fibre-optic cables. This contrasts with broa ...

service providers for the city of

Hamilton, Ontario Hamilton is a port city in the Canadian province of Ontario. Hamilton has a population of 569,353, and its census metropolitan area, which includes Burlington and Grimsby, has a population of 785,184. The city is approximately southwest of T ...

and its surrounding area, specifically the

Hamilton Mountain Hamilton is located on the western end of the Niagara Peninsula and wraps around the westernmost part of the Lake Ontario. Most of the city including the downtown section lies along the south shore. Situated in the geographic centre of the Gold ...

area and

Haldimand County Haldimand County is a rural city-status single-tier municipality on the Niagara Peninsula in Southern Ontario, Canada, on the north shore of Lake Erie, and on the Grand River. Despite its name, it is no longer a county by definition, as all m ...

. Its operations were acquired by

Shaw Communications Shaw Communications Inc. is a Canadian telecommunications company which provides telephone, Internet, television, and mobile services. Headquartered in Calgary, Alberta, Shaw provides home telecommunications services primarily in Alberta and Br ...

in 2009, which then resold them to

Rogers Rogers may refer to: Places Canada *Rogers Pass (British Columbia) * Rogers Island (Nunavut) United States * Rogers, Arkansas, a city * Rogers, alternate name of Muroc, California, a former settlement * Rogers, Indiana, an unincorporated communit ...

in 2013. The other two providers in the Hamilton area are

Cogeco Cogeco Inc. is a Canadian telecommunications and media company. Its corporate offices are located at 1 Place Ville-Marie in Montreal, Quebec. The company is structured into three strategic business units (SBU); Cogeco Connexion, Breezeline ( ...

and

Source Cable Source Cable (formerly known as Southmount Cable Limited) is one of three main cable television service providers for the city of Hamilton, Ontario. The other two are Rogers Cable (in the former Mountain Cablevision / Shaw territory) and Cog ...

(formerly known as Southmount Cable).

History

Mountain Cable was founded in 1959 as "General Co-axial Services, Limited"; it specialized in installing Master Antenna systems on

apartment building An apartment (American English), or flat (British English, Indian English, South African English), is a self-contained housing unit (a type of residential real estate) that occupies part of a building, generally on a single story. There are ...

hotel A hotel is an establishment that provides paid lodging on a short-term basis. Facilities provided inside a hotel room may range from a modest-quality mattress in a small room to large suites with bigger, higher-quality beds, a dresser, a ref ...

s, and

resort A resort (North American English) is a self-contained commercial establishment that tries to provide most of a vacationer's wants, such as food, drink, swimming, lodging, sports, entertainment, and shopping, on the premises. The term ''resort ...

s. That same year, The Ontario Housing Corporation (which designed the Buchanan Park

subdivision Subdivision may refer to: Arts and entertainment * Subdivision (metre), in music * ''Subdivision'' (film), 2009 * "Subdivision", an episode of ''Prison Break'' (season 2) * ''Subdivisions'' (EP), by Sinch, 2005 * "Subdivisions" (song), by Rus ...

) was surveying the possibility of building a whole housing project with no above-ground utilities (placing them all underground to improve safety and reliability during storms). The neighbourhood's homeowners approached the company to have General Co-axial Services install a

CATV Cable television is a system of delivering television programming to consumers via radio frequency (RF) signals transmitted through coaxial cables, or in more recent systems, light pulses through fibre-optic cables. This contrasts with broadc ...

system with the intention of an alternative to bulky and somewhat unsightly roof-top

antenna Antenna ( antennas or antennae) may refer to: Science and engineering * Antenna (radio), also known as an aerial, a transducer designed to transmit or receive electromagnetic (e.g., TV or radio) waves * Antennae Galaxies, the name of two collid ...

s. The homeowners also asked the company to lay the first neighbourhood-wide underground utility lines. The neighbourhood would become the first housing development in all of

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

that would have all of its utilities placed underground, with no

utility pole A utility pole is a column or post typically made out of wood used to support overhead power lines and various other public utilities, such as electrical cable, optical fiber, fiber optic cable, and related equipment such as Distribution transfor ...

s other than

street light A street light, light pole, lamp pole, lamppost, street lamp, light standard, or lamp standard is a raised source of light on the edge of a road or path. Similar lights may be found on a railway platform. When urban electric power distribution ...

s. Within two years, over three quarters of the homes in the subdivision were linked to the CATV system. In July 2009,

announced that it would acquire Mountain Cablevision for $300 million. In September 2009,

Rogers Communications Rogers Communications Inc. is a Telecommunications in Canada, Canadian communications and media company operating primarily in the fields of mobile phone operator, wireless communications, cable television, telephony and Internet access, Intern ...

sued Shaw to block the sale, arguing that it violated a non-competition agreement which specified that Rogers and Shaw would only operate cablesystems in Eastern and Western Canada respectively. The suit was thrown out, with a judge ruling that the agreement was

anti-competitive Anti-competitive practices are business or government practices that prevent or reduce competition in a market. Antitrust laws differ among state and federal laws to ensure businesses do not engage in competitive practices that harm other, usuall ...

, and that claims of future harm based on possible Eastern acquisitions by Shaw were "speculative in the extreme". In January 2013, as part of a larger series of transactions between the two companies, it was announced that Rogers had acquired Mountain Cablevision for $400 million. In 2014, Rogers began migrating Mountain customers into Rogers service, although the transition was criticized by some users for resulting in technical issues with their services.

Services

In addition to their cable television services, Mountain Cable also offered digital phone and

high-speed internet 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.

Community television

The local cable television station Cable 14 was partially owned and carried by Mountain; it continued to be partially owned and carried by Shaw, and now Rogers.

References

{{Rogers Communications Defunct cable and DBS companies of Canada Internet service providers of Canada Companies based in Hamilton, Ontario Shaw Communications