Vidéotron

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Vidéotron Limited is an integrated communications company active in cable television, interactive multimedia development, video on demand, wireless communication and Internet access services, serving Quebec, Canada. It is a subsidiary of Quebecor.

Vidéotron serves 1,553,000 cable television customers in Quebec; including over 585,000 "illico" (digital cable) subscribers. Vidéotron also provides high-speed cable Internet access, with more than 800,000 subscribers to its cable modem and dial-up services, the most in Quebec and nearly 550,000 cable telephony subscribers as of November 2006. Vidéotron has a monopoly on video service in Montreal, Quebec and Sherbrooke.

1 CRIA and customer privacy
2 History
3 Project Cleanfeed Canada
4 Call Centres
5 References
6 External links

[edit] CRIA and customer privacy

Vidéotron was the only Internet Service Provider in Canada willing to hand over personal information of its subscribers to Canadian Recording Industry Association.^[1]

[edit] History

1964: Vidéotron, under the name "Télécâble Vidéotron ltée.", establishes their first network of cable television in north Montreal and parts of Laval, with an initial subscriber base of 66. Their first president is André Chagnon.
1966 – 1969: Vidéotron acquires and upgrades cable television networks across Quebec.
1969: Vidéotron offers the first à la carte cable television service under the name of Sélecto-TV.
1974: Bidirectional cable television debuts in Saint-Jérôme, Quebec, a world first.
1980: Vidéotron acquires Câblevision Nationale to become the largest teledistributor in Quebec.
November 20, 1985: Vidéotron's initial public offering with the Montreal Exchange.
1986: Vidéotron acquires Télé-Métropole, the largest private French-language television company in North America.
December 3, 1988: A subsidiary was incorporated under the name Protectron for home security services via their existing cable network.
1989: The SuperClub Vidéotron stores, now the largest chain of video clubs in Quebec, debut. A network of fibre-optic cable is built between Montreal and Quebec City.
1990: Vidéotron launches its first Vidéoway terminals in Quebec, the first system of interactive television in North America.
1995: Vidéotron enters the Internet era: in the next year, they acquire an Internet portal, InfiniT.com, which becomes one of the most popular on the Internet for French-speaking web users.
1997: CF Cable, which operates primarily on the western end of the Island of Montreal, southern Laval and Northern Ontario, is acquired by Vidéotron. The Northern Ontario division was subsequently sold to Regional Cablesystems.
1999: Digital television is launched in Montreal in the spring, and then in Hull and Quebec City in the autumn.
2000: Rogers Communications strikes an agreement with the Chagnon family to purchase Vidéotron. Under the deal, the Chagnons would have kept Videotron subsidiary TVA. Citing cultural sovereignty concerns, the second-largest shareholder, the Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec, invokes its right to veto the purchase. After months of legal proceedings, Quebecor, which gained the Caisse's support, acquires Vidéotron (including TVA) instead.
2001: Protectron becomes an independent Canadian Company and is no longer a part of the Vidéotron family of services.
23 May 2001: The CRTC approves the transfer of broadcasting licences from Vidéotron to Quebecor. The interactive television service illico launches.
May 8, 2002 – March 2003: a strike then a lock-out of Vidéotron Ltee employees took place. The main conflicts between the employer and employees where wages, working conditions and more importantly the transfer of 664 technicians to a subcontractor where wages and working conditions were lower. The employer changed its position on the transfer of the technicians, but gained substantial rights. Vidéotron obtained the right to send 40% of the installation and repair services to subcontractors. Wages would be frozen until 2005, and the workweek was extended by 2.5 hours.
2003: Video on demand and high-definition television become available.
2005: Telephone services through cable with Cable telephony technology launches.
2005: Parent company Videotron Telecom merged.
2006: Vidéotron launches wireless service (using Rogers' existing infrastructure).
2006: Project Cleanfeed Canada initiative announced. (see below)
~2008: Vidéotron plans to re-establish home security services.
~2010: Vidéotron plans to completely eliminate the analogical signal from their cable lines.

During its existence, Vidéotron has also been active in the United Kingdom, Africa, and the United States. One of its previous subsidiaries, Videotron Telecom, was financed by the well-known Carlyle Group.

[edit] Project Cleanfeed Canada

In November 2006, to address the problem of the access and proliferation of child pornography sites, Vidéotron, Bell Aliant, Bell Canada, MTS Allstream, Rogers, Shaw, SaskTel and Telus, in conjunction with cybertip.ca (a nationwide tipline for reporting the online sexual exploitation of children), announced the creation of Project Cleanfeed Canada, an initiative designed to block access to hundreds of pornography sites. However, some critics denounce the initiative, saying that this amounts to nothing more than internet censorship.[1]

[edit] Call Centres

Vidéotron still has all of their call centres in Quebec. The major centres are located in Montreal, Quebec City and St-Hubert.

Vidéotron also has some customer service centres outsourced through various customer support agencies. Some of these include Gexel Telecom, Synergie and Atelka.