Montréal, July 12, 2007 – Videotron is pleased to announce that it has reached the coveted benchmark of 500,000 residential and business customers for its cable telephony service. The 500,000th subscriber lives on Montréal's South Shore, where Videotron initially launched its cable telephony service in 2005.
500,000 clients can now say goodbye to long distance charges
Thanks to Videotron's cable telephone service, 500,000 clients can now communicate among themselves for free, from one end of the province to the other. Through its infinite power of cable, Videotron is able to offer exclusive free long-distance calls between subscribers to its residential telephone service.
96% satisfaction rate
"We are very proud of the work we have accomplished since the launch of this new service. Videotron is aware that the more households it offers services to, the more it stimulates market competition. We wanted to offer Quebec residents the opportunity to choose their telephone service provider, and today more than 500,000 residential and business subscribers have accepted our offer, and are satisfied with our service," states Robert Dépatie, Videotron President and CEO. According to a 2007 survey conducted last March by Léger Marketing, our client satisfaction rating for this product increased to 96%. This high customer satisfaction is related to the fact that a large number of consumers were looking for a reliable alternative to traditional telephone service," adds Mr. Dépatie.
Fore-runner in cable telephone service
In 2005, Vidéotron took the innovative initiative by becoming the first major Canadian cable company to offer consumers residential telephone service via cable. This novel and affordable service is a reliable alternative to traditional telephone service, for both local and long distance calling, and responds to consumer demand for receiving all telecommunications services from a single source.
Videotron chose Montreal's South Shore for the initial launch of its new service, and gradually expanded its service to include Laval, Québec, Montreal, Montréal's North Shore, Saguenay, Gatineau and Sherbrooke regions. Videotron's cable telephone service is now available in all of the large urban centres located in the areas served by the company, and now covers more than 83% of this territory.
New advances in Vidéotron telephone service: softphone and video phone service
Videotron's cable telephone service is continually evolving. For the past two years it has focussed on introducing and managing the growth of its new product, and this year Videotron will be launching new applications. Videotron's cable telephone subscribers will soon be able to take advantage of the softphone telephone service, allowing them to better manage their calls and all their communications, including video phone service in the near future.
The lucky 500,000th customer who subscribed to Videotron's cable telephone service has won a free, one-year subscription that includes the following services: voice mail, e-mail voice mail, call waiting, call display conference calls and call forwarding.
Videotron Ltd. (www.videotron.com), a wholly owned subsidiary of Quebecor Media Inc., is an integrated communications company engaged in cable television, interactive multimedia development, Internet access services, cable telephony and wireless telephone service. Videotron is a leader in new technologies with its illico interactive television system and its broadband network, which supports high-speed cable Internet access, analog and digital cable television, and other services. As of March 31, 2007, Videotron was serving 1,583,000 cable television customers in Québec, including 653,000 illico subscribers. Videotron is the Québec leader in high-speed Internet access, with 828,000 subscribers to its cable modem and dial-up services. On that date, Videotron had activated 20,000 lines on its wireless telephone service and, as on July 5, the company was providing cable telephone service to more than 500,000 Québec households and organizations.
