Bell ExpressVu Crosses 1 Million Mark

Bell ExpressVu, one of two digital satellite TV providers in Canada, said this week that it crossed the one million subscriber milestone.

The satellite provider, owned by Montreal-based BCE Inc., said the company on track to expand its customer base by almost 50 percent in 2001. About 70 percent of ExpressVu's new customers are coming from urban markets, the company said, areas that have traditionally been served by cable companies.

Bell ExpressVu launched its service in September 1997. "There's momentum in the million," said Bell ExpressVu President David McLennan. "This is a really exciting moment in our company history. We have a great product and great people, supported by an underlying commitment to give Canadian customers the kind of television experience that they deserve."

Bell ExpressVu's Canadian competition in the satellite TV business, Star Choice, had 629,000 subscribers as of Aug. 31.

From www.SkyReport.Com (http://www.SkyReport.Com) (Used with permission)

Congrads BEV! :)

Steve

Now, if the Canadian Supreme Court issues a decision invalidating gray market subscribing to and the self-delusional "perfectly legal" argument Canadian pirates use to rationalize unauthorized hacking of U.S. DBS signals, BEV's subscriber base might really take off! Such a decision would also make Canadian manufacturers and dealers of DBS piracy equipment libel to criminal prosecution. This past summer saw wholesale raids of U.S. manufacturers and dealers, but the flow of these toys from Canada continues unabated. It's not only in Canada's interest to stem this activity. Ultimately, it's in our's, too, since legitimate subscribers are really who fund DirecTV's anti-piracy efforts.

"Now, if the Canadian Supreme Court issues a decision invalidating gray market subscribing to and the self-delusional "perfectly legal" argument"

There is absolutely no way that the Supreme Court of Canada is going to overturn the consistent rulings of 18 different judges.
The misinterpretation of a law, enacted when DBS was just an idea, to the benefit of a corporate lobby is just not going to happen. Even if the Supreme Court overturned previous judgements, there is a Charter of Rights case for this - Bell knows this. Canada ain't Cuba or the former USSR. How would you Americans like it if Bush said to you - fine, imprisonment, confiscation for watching/listening to foreign stations.

You see my southern friends, the real reason for all this Bell court action for protectionism is that in the long term, Expressvu is screwed, kaput in it's present format if the DTV/E* merger happens. You don't see Shaw Communications (owner of Star Choice) lining up in court with Bell do you?

Star Choice is on budget this fiscal year (ending Aug 2002) to break even with only 800,000 subscribers. Since they use the DCII encryption; security has not been an issue/expense for them. Since they are DTH, not DBS, they have lots of available bandwidth available to them (F1 ku now) F2 to be launched in 2003 still has 16 ku slots unspoken for; F3 to be launched in 2003 has 31 ku slots available; - all the Anik F series ku beams are continental beams. On top of that there is a Canada only C/Ku slot vacant at 114.3

Bell on the other hand is loosing plenty of dollars. Now here are the 2 achilles heels for Bell: 1) Canada only has 2 DBS slots - 91 where NIMIQ1 is presently at and 82 which does not have a clear line of sight for all west coast clients and
2) The merged DTV/E* is viable because the costs of equipment upgrades for all subs are more than covered by the savings in non duplication of transponders/uplinks. Additionally the merged company has the bandwidth to compete against cable in the HD era. Whereas Bell is stuck replacing these old Echostar units with no cost savings or revenue gains.

So Bell knows that they need to have a protected base of around 2M Canadian subs (SC is not aggressive marketing company - so Bell can easily get 66% of new Canadian subs) + the abilty to accept as many American gray subs as they can get without upsetting Charlie inorder to have any chance of profitability.

These court cases are all about restricting the rights of every Canadian so that Ma Bell can make money - It wouldn't happen in the US and it ain't going to happen in Canada.

BTW I can see myself having a SC dish + a merged E*/Directv dish in 4 or 5 years time