Telus quietly purchased the residential internet customers of wholesaler City Wide Communications through its subsidiary Altima last summer, the Vancouver-based telecom confirmed.
“As a new entrant in the region, Altima is offering customers the added benefits of greater access to a wide range of products, including mobility, home automation, security, health, and entertainment,” a Telus spokesperson told Cartt. “It is business as usual at City Wide, which continues to operate as a company serving their business customers.”
City Wide, which also offers television and landline services, is based in Nova Scotia.
Telus, which purchased Altima in 2022 and more recently O-Net in Olds, Alberta in the fall, has been expanding its reach across the country through wholesaling, as it battles alone against its two bigger peers to continue accessing the internet regime that allows it to lease network capacity from others.
It recently started providing gigabit services in Ontario and Quebec through the CRTC’s last-mile fibre regime, which allows service providers to lease those facilities from Bell and Telus.
The telco then launched a public campaign to drum up support against a cabinet decision asking the CRTC to consider banning the Big 3 from access to those last-mile fibre facilities in Ontario and Quebec. That campaign has been countered by one launched by indie rep the Canadian Network Operators of Canada last week.
The tit-for-tat comes before the CRTC’s anticipated response to that cabinet recommendation next week.
Rogers, Bell, CNOC and other independent service providers are similarly asking the CRTC to ban the Big 3 from being able to use the wholesale regime altogether – regardless of technology – for various reasons, including that allowing that access would allegedly mean those smaller companies would have to compete for market share with deeper-pocketed telecoms in their own operating territory.
