Cogeco

History

Cogeco entered the television business in the mid-1950s with the launch of a Radio-Canada affiliate in Trois-Rivières, CKTM-TV. Later the company expanded with the creation of CKSH-TV in Sherbrooke, a radio network and diversification in the cable television industry. Until 2008, Cogeco co-owned the TQS network (now "V") with CTVglobemedia, and eight television stations affiliated with TQS and Radio-Canada. TQS and its five owned-and-operated stations were sold to Remstar Corporation, and the Radio-Canada affiliates were sold directly to Radio-Canada, in 2008. Cogeco is the largest cable company in Canada that does not own any terrestrial TV outlets (Rogers Communications owns City and Omni; Quebecor-owned Vidéotron owns the TVA network with several O&O stations).

Through its broadcast holdings, Cogeco Cable (TSX: CCA) is a major cable television distributor offering analogue and digital television, high-speed Internet services, and VoIP telephony. It is the second largest cable system operator in Ontario and in Quebec, (respectively behind Rogers & Vidéotron), and the fourth largest in Canada.

Starting in 2006, Cogeco Cable began overhauling its Ontario and Quebec Hybrid fibre-coaxial physical plant networks to expand the total amount of bandwidth available. The ability to offer expanded 2-way bidirectional services such as High Definition digital cable, High-Speed Internet and VoIP Digital Telephony and to improve network reliability is the driving force behind this upgrade.

After upgrades are complete, the Ontario network will have 750 MHz of bandwidth and the Quebec network will have 550 MHz of bandwidth. With this capacity, a total of 110 or 83 analogue channels (depending on the network) can be transmitted. Given that each analogue channel occupies 6 MHz of bandwidth, Cogeco utilizes the latest compression, multiplexing and modulation technologies to be able to transmit up to thirteen Standard Definition TV signals or else up to three high-definition TV signals on each of these channels.

Cogeco used to own Cabovisão, a cable system in Portugal; on February 29, 2012 that it was announced that Cogeco sold Cabovisão to ALTICE, a European media group.

Cogeco acquired the U.S.-based cable provider Atlantic Broadband in July 2012.

In December 2012, Cogeco acquired Peer 1 Hosting, a Canadian-based internet infrastructure provider, specializing in managed hosting, dedicated servers, cloud services and colocation.

On October 19, 2015, Cogeco announced the new company name for its subsidiaries Cogeco Data Services and Peer 1 Hosting, Cogeco Peer 1.

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, with 90% of homes passed also able to access digital video on demand services. 93% of homes passed also have access to Cogeco Cable's two-way bi-directional cable plant, giving customers the ability to enjoy high definition TV programming and high-speed Internet services.

Cogeco Cable uses Motorola and Pace set-top boxes for delivery of their digital cable services. Three choices are available: a standard-definition television (SDTV) receiver, a high-definition television (HDTV) receiver and an HD PVR.

Internet access

Cogeco Cable uses a DOCSIS 3.0 -compliant network to provide all of their Internet Protocol (IP)-based services, such as Internet access and VoIP. To position itself as a leader in delivering broadband solutions to its customers, Cogeco Cable became actively involved in the DOCSIS program and was one of the first major cable operators to deploy a DOCSIS-based network.

In April 2009, Cogeco implemented a penalty for surpassing the bandwidth limits for each tier, for standard this is $1.50 per 1GB to a maximum of $50 monthly. A three-month history is available online.

Since February 2013, Cogeco has offered 60Mbit/s download speeds in select areas which takes advantage of the new DOCSIS 3.0 platform upgrades. This platform takes advantage of four downstream data carriers and a special DOCSIS 3.0 cable modem to provide speeds of over 250Mbit/s.

VoIP digital telephony

Cogeco Cable launched its digital phone service in June 2005, a VoIP-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 & 0-operator services.

As of October 16, 2006, 70% of all homes passed by Cogeco Cable plant are able to access this service.

Cogeco Data Services

On April 1, 2008, Cogeco acquired MaXess Networx, a division of EnWin Utilities.

On June 13, 2008, Cogeco acquired the Telecommunications division of Toronto Hydro, Toronto's municipal electric utility. As of August 1, 2008, Toronto Hydro Telecom is now known as Cogeco Data Services.

On August 2, 2011, Cogeco Cable acquired Quiettouch Inc. and was integrated under Cogeco Data Services to complement CDS' array of services.

On August 31, 2011, Cogeco Cable acquired MTO Telecom Inc. (the largest private telecom provider and fibre network operator in the Montreal greater area) and was integrated under Cogeco Data Services to expand CDS' presence in the Province of Quebec.

Cogeco Diffusion Inc.

The media subsidiary that began as Cogeco Radio-Télévision was renamed Cogeco Diffusion Inc. in 2011 following the takeover of Corus Quebec from Corus Entertainment.

Radio

Prior to Cogeco's acquisition of Corus Québec, all its stations, except CJMF-FM, were part of the Adult Contemporary network, Rythme FM.

Cogeco also owned the now-defunct CKO radio network after acquiring AGRA subsidiary Cybermedix in 1989; the network and its stations went dark in November of that year.

Acquisition of Corus Québec

On April 30, 2010, it was announced that Cogeco will acquire all radio stations owned by Corus Entertainment in Quebec, including its Corus Québec group of stations and Montreal anglophone station CFQR-FM (since re-called CKBE-FM), pending CRTC approval. Cogeco will acquire these stations for $80 million, as these stations are less profitable to Corus than their stations in other parts of Canada. However, Cogeco must either apply with the CRTC for an exemption from the common ownership policy, or sell off some of these (or their own) stations as they will be over the maximum allowable number of stations in Montreal, Quebec City, and Sherbrooke.

The sale of the Corus Québec stations to Cogeco was approved by the CRTC on December 17, 2010, on the condition that Cogeco-owned CJEC-FM and Corus-owned CFEL-FM and CKOY-FM (since re-called CJTS-FM) be sold to another party by December 2011. On November 9, 2011, it was announced that Cogeco would sell CFEL-FM and CJEC-FM to Leclerc Communication Inc., a company owned by Quebec City businessman Jacques Leclerc, owner of Laura Secord Chocolates and Biscuits Leclerc. The sale was approved by the CRTC on January 19 and completed on January 31, 2012. The stations were delisted from Cogeco Diffusion's website shortly thereafter. CJTS-FM would cease operations on December 6, 2011, when Cogeco was unable to find a buyer for the station by the deadline; its license has since been cancelled.

The sale included the transmitter sites and equipment in Kahnawake, which had been used for CINF and CINW, before the stations closed down in January 2010; the sale excluded the licences, as they were submitted to the CRTC for cancellation.

The sale did not include CKRS-FM in Saguenay, which was sold to a local company, Radio Saguenay.

The stations acquired were:

Television

Cogeco's primary television venture is the TVCogeco system of local community channels in markets served by Cogeco Cable. As of the sale of TQS, Cogeco no longer owns any conventional television assets. In 2008. Cogeco also sold its 20% interest in Canal Indigo to Quebecor Media.

The five TQS O&Os which were owned by Cogeco were acquired by Remstar as part of the TQS transaction:

Concurrently, Cogeco also sold its three Télévision de Radio-Canada affiliates directly to the CBC:

Cogeco Métromédia

On December 6, 2011, Cogeco acquired Métromédia CMR Plus Inc., a company that specialises in transit advertising in various Canadian cities. Métromédia CMR Plus had been related to the Métromédia CMR group of radio stations that was acquired by Corus in 2005 (and eventually resold to Cogeco), but was not part of the sale to Corus.