CNCP Telecommunications

Last updated
CNCP Telecommunications
Formerly CN Telegraph, CP Telegraphs
IndustryTelecommunications
Founded1967;57 years ago (1967)
DefunctMay 1990;33 years ago (May 1990)
FateMerged with Rogers Communications.
Headquarters Etobicoke, Ontario,
Canada
Products Telegrams, Fax, Telex
BrandsTelePost, Facsroute, Mach III, Infodat

CNCP Telecommunications (Canadian National-Canadian Pacific Telecommunications) was an electrical telegraph operator and later a telecom company, which operated between 1967 and 1990.

Contents

CNCP was created as a joint venture between the Canadian National Railway and the Canadian Pacific Railway in the era when telegraph operation was declining and maintaining two separate networks was no longer profitable. The new company also began several expansions into new markets, first with a Montreal to Vancouver microwave relay network carrying voice and data, and later, its replacement with fibre optic links.

Rogers Communications purchased a major stake in the company in 1984, and CN sold its remaining share in 1988. The network was taken over entirely by Rogers in 1990, and renamed it Unitel Communications in a bid to enter the commercial long distance market. This division changed hands several times from 2002 to 2012 when it was renamed Allstream.

History

Beginnings

Restored CNCP counter on display at the Saskatchewan Railway Museum TrainStationInterior.jpg
Restored CNCP counter on display at the Saskatchewan Railway Museum

Beginning in 1967, the different networks used by the two railway companies (CN Telegraph interchanged traffic with the Postal Telegraph Cable Company in the US while CPR Telegraphs networked with Western Union) were replaced by a single corporate entity. The two networks, former rivals, had been co-operating increasingly since the 1930s.

The next year, CNCP and TCTS (Trans Canada Telephone System, later Telecom Canada) published a brief, stating that they could work together in financing a Canadian telecommunications satellite so long as the federal government also had a stake in the project. [1]

TelePost was a joint venture between CNCP and Canada Post that began in 1973. Using the service, an individual or company could compose a message electronically, then have it delivered by a postal carrier the next business day. [2] [3]

The last commercial telegraph operator with the company west of Thunder Bay (working in Regina) retired from the company in September 1971, with the six operators in Eastern Canada leaving soon after. [4]

In 1973, CNCP added the Infodat data service, making it up to 90% cheaper to transfer teletype or computer data by using time-division multiplexing (TDM) and digital transmission.

In 1974 the Canadian Transport Commission (CTC) approved an 11% wholesale rate increase for telegrams, but rejected 9% on top of the granted increase. [5]

Early telecom

In 1978, CNCP appeared before the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC). In their written filings with the commission, released a day before a second phase of hearings into the interconnect issue, they stated that they may have to completely go out of business if they are not allowed to interconnect with Bell Canada and other telcos. [6] In its response to CNCP and the CRTC, Bell said that if CNCP wins approval for connection between the two carriers, Bell would increase its rates and seek government subsidies. [7]

On May 17, 1979, the CRTC released its breakthrough Telecom Decision 1979-11, allowing CNCP to interconnect with the Bell Canada network. [8] At this point, CNCP was no longer a telegraph company and emerged as an early telecom company. The CRTC directed Bell Canada that it was prohibited from refusing connections between the two networks. [9] A month later, Bell Canada announced that it intended to appeal the decision, stating that they would lose $140 million a year from competition with CNCP. [10] Cabinet upheld the decision. [11]

Due to changes in technology towards electronic communications and fewer telegrams being sent, the company closed seven telegraph offices in Canada in January 1980: Prince Rupert, Vernon, Cornwall, Sherbrooke, Rouyn-Noranda, and the Gaspe region. [12]

Infotex, a new service introduced in 1980, used dedicated word processors connected to the Bell Canada–CNCP network to enable speedy transmission of documents across the country. [13] Telenews, on a trial basis to 500 customers, featured The Canadian Press newswire service, with regular updates every hour. Telenews was carried via the Telex network with a flat rate of 55 cents per minute. [14]

After journalist Jeanne Sauvé noted "pay tv is inevitable" in the 1970s,[ relevant? ] the CRTC and the Department of Communications built a policy framework to accommodate future pay television services. CNCP leased a satellite channel to cable consortium Canadian Satellite Network Inc. (CSN), which was created by 50 Canadian cable television companies and headed by Kevin Shea. This carried two programming blocks from TVOntario: Galaxie, featuring four hours of children's programs; and Vista, featuring a three-hour weekly series of music, interviews, and science programming. Prior to the announcement of TVO's Galaxie and Vista, CSN had carried the Canadian House of Commons broadcasts since 1979. CSN's wish was that the CBC would take over the responsibilities of the House of Commons broadcasts, which by 1992 was given back to the cable companies. and became present day CPAC. [15] [16]

Mergers

Until this time, CNCP had operated financially as two separate entities (CN and CP). The two companies merged their telecommunications divisions in January 1981. [17] After the CRTC approved, J. G. Sutherland was named president and CEO of the company. [18]

Intelpost was a national and international fax service begun in early 1981 and managed by CNCP and Canada Post. A person wanting to send a document requiring more than simple text – charts, drawings, and other types of graphics – could send it from a few main post office locations, originally limited to Toronto, Montreal, Ottawa, Halifax, Winnipeg, Calgary, and Edmonton. Documents within Canada were sent via the microwave network. Those sent to the US or Europe were transmitted via satellite. [19]

During the Canada Post strike of 1981, [20] telecommunications carriers noted an increase in long-distance voice, data and fax usage. These services somewhat circumvented the need for the strike to resolve. [21] CNCP reported sales increases of 25% for telegrams and 67% for Telex equipment during the month of July, which was usually a slack month for the hardware. [22]

A 40% stake of CNCP was acquired by Rogers Communications in 1984 and CP acquired CN's stake. The company logo was updated in April 1984, removing the word Telecommunications. [23]

Undaunted by the CRTC's unwillingness to allow competition in voice communications in Canada, the company applied to the CRTC for "tariff revisions" relating to providing electronic mail and "office communication services". [24] The company had applied to the CRTC to have Canadian telecommunications regulations changed so that businesses and consumers would be able to choose between their regular telephone company and CNCP Telecommunications. The CRTC released their decision in August 1985, denying the company the go-ahead to provide mass-market communications to Canadians. [25]

CNCP announced in April 1986 that it had connected Toronto and Montreal with 12 strands of fibre optic cable and that implementation of this technology would lead to a 30–40% reduction in long-distance telephone costs to consumers. The Hudson's Bay Company was the first to use the network to transmit a high volume of data. [26]

In the summer of 1987, CNCP had to request that the CRTC direct Bell Canada to provide interconnections between the company and Bell Canada's connections to the United States to comply with CRTC's Telecom Decision 1979-11. A company in Toronto had requested 10 foreign exchange lines to a Sprint telecom switch in Buffalo, New York. [27] In addition to this request, CNCP wanted exemption from over-regulation having to do with its services. [28] [29] At the same time, CNCP completed Dialcom, a digital microwave link which extended from Toronto, Ontario, to Calgary and Edmonton, Alberta. Dialcom allowed for exchange of e-mail messages, regardless of hardware equipment. [30]

Divestment and Unitel rebranding

CN sold its share of the network for $235 million as the partnership with CP was dissolved in December 1988. [31] Rogers renamed the company Unitel Communications Incorporated in May 1990. [32] [33]

Unitel applied for tariffs (fee schedule) for DS-1 telecom services (256 kbit/s, 384 kbit/s, 512 kbit/s, 768 kbit/s) and DS-2 6.312 Mbit/s over T2 lines in May 1990 and marketed as Mach III. [34] A T1 cable carries up to 24 DS1 voice/data signals at a speed of 1.544 Mbit/s per 24 channel grouping. A T2 cable carries up to 96 DS2 voice/data signals at a speed of 6.312 Mbit/s per 96 channel grouping.

Unitel was later acquired by AT&T Canada, now known as Allstream (now part of Zayo Group). The telegram division was later acquired by iTelegram and renamed Telegrams Canada in 2002, based in Toronto.

Services

CNCP provided a multitude of electronic data services to businesses across Canada. Some of these included: [35]

CNCP Facsroute

CNCP FacsRoute was a Canadian telecommunications network that delivered fax documents, circa 1988. Initially a store and forward fax service was provided over an X.25 data network, and presented to the market with all the traditional "value added" arguments; it peaked at $2 million revenue and 2,000 subscribers.

A year later, the regulator allowed real time FacsRoute, which attracted $40 million of revenue and 50,000 subscribers of the 300,000 fax terminals then in Canada, doing so in nine months. Real time FacsRoute was provided over a 64 kbit/s bypass GSTN[ ambiguous ] via "voice busters" which cut the dialed connection after a cumulative 70 seconds of speech per call: a remarkably "value subtracted" way of bringing a transcontinental 64 kbit/s service to market, but a 20-fold increase in business over the store and forward FacsRoute Plus.

Further reading

See also

Related Research Articles

Present-day telecommunications in Canada include telephone, radio, television, and internet usage. In the past, telecommunications included telegraphy available through Canadian Pacific and Canadian National.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission</span> Broadcasting and telecommunications regulator

The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission is a public organization in Canada with mandate as a regulatory agency for broadcasting and telecommunications. It was created in 1976 when it took over responsibility for regulating telecommunication carriers. Prior to 1976, it was known as the Canadian Radio and Television Commission, which was established in 1968 by the Parliament of Canada to replace the Board of Broadcast Governors. Its headquarters is located in the Central Building of Les Terrasses de la Chaudière in Gatineau, Quebec.

The liberalization of Bangladesh's telecommunications sector began with small steps in 1989 with the issuance of a license to a private operator for the provision of inter alia cellular mobile services to compete with Bangladesh Telegraph and Telephone Board (BTTB), the previous monopoly provider of telecommunications services within Bangladesh. Significant changes in the number of fixed and mobile services deployed in Bangladesh occurred in the late 1990s and the number of services in operation has subsequently grown exponentially in the past five years.

The Western Union Company is an American multinational financial services corporation headquartered in Denver, Colorado.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bell Canada</span> Canadian telecommunications company

Bell Canada is a Canadian telecommunications company headquartered at 1 Carrefour Alexander-Graham-Bell in the borough of Verdun in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It is an ILEC in the provinces of Ontario and Quebec; as such, it was a founding member of the Stentor Alliance. It is also a CLEC for enterprise customers in the western provinces.

Vidéotron is a Canadian integrated telecommunications company active in cable television, interactive multimedia development, video on demand, cable telephony, wireless communication and Internet access services. Owned by Quebecor, it primarily serves Quebec and Ottawa, as well as the Francophone communities of New Brunswick and some parts of Eastern Ontario. Its principal competitors are Bell Canada and Telus Communications.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">BCE Inc.</span> Canadian telecommunications and media company

BCE Inc., an abbreviation of its full name Bell Canada Enterprises Inc., is a publicly traded Canadian holding company for Bell Canada, which includes telecommunications providers and various mass media assets under its subsidiary Bell Media Inc. Founded through a corporate reorganization in 1983, when Bell Canada, Northern Telecom, and other related companies all became subsidiaries of Bell Canada Enterprises Inc., it is one of Canada's largest corporations. The company is headquartered at 1 Carrefour Alexander-Graham-Bell in the Verdun borough of Montreal, Quebec, Canada.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bell Media</span> Canadian media company

Bell Media Inc. is a Canadian media conglomerate that is the mass media subsidiary of BCE Inc.. Its operations include national television broadcasting and production, radio broadcasting, digital media and Internet properties.

Bell MTS Inc. is a subsidiary of BCE Inc. that operates telecommunications services in Manitoba.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Shaw Communications</span> Former Canadian communications company

Shaw Communications Inc. was a Canadian telecommunications company which provided telephone, Internet, television, and mobile services. The company was founded in 1966 as Capital Cable Television Company, Ltd. by JR Shaw in Edmonton. The company was acquired by and amalgamated into Rogers Communications in 2023; most operations were rebranded to the Rogers brand beginning in July of that year.

Classicomm was a small cable provider in Canada serving communities in southern York Region from its offices in Richmond Hill, Ontario.

Canadian Pacific Limited was created in 1971 to own properties formerly owned by Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR), a transportation and mining giant in Canada. In October 2001, CPR completed the corporate spin-offs of each of the remaining businesses it had not sold, including Canadian Pacific Railway Limited.

Northwestel Inc. is a Canadian telecommunications company that is the incumbent local exchange carrier (ILEC) and long-distance carrier in the territories of Yukon, the Northwest Territories, Nunavut, and part of Northern British Columbia. Originally established in 1979 by the Canadian National Railway from CN's northern telecommunications assets, it has been owned by BCE Inc. since 1988.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Allstream Inc.</span> Canadian communications business

Allstream is a business communications provider based in Mississauga, Ontario, Canada, that provides Internet Protocol (IP) connectivity, managed IP services, unified communications and voice services to its customers in the United States and Canada.

CBC Parliamentary Television Network was a Canadian cable television specialty channel that broadcast the House of Commons of Canada proceedings via Anik satellite to Canadian cable television headends between September 1979 and 1992.

TSN2 is a Canadian English-language discretionary sports specialty channel that acts as the secondary feed of sports-centred channel The Sports Network (TSN) and owned by CTV Specialty Television Inc. It was launched in its current form on August 29, 2008.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Internet in Canada</span> Overview of the Internet in Canada

Canada ranks as the 21st in the world for Internet usage with 31.77 million users as of July 2016 (est), making up 89.8% of the population. According to Harvard researchers, Canada has some of the lowest internet standards among OECD countries, as a result of high costs and slow internet speeds.

Media ownership in Canada is governed by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC), with respect to audiovisual media and telecom networks, and other agencies with more specific jurisdiction, in the case of non-broadcast media—like the Competition Bureau, with respect to competition matters, and Department of Canadian Heritage regarding foreign investment in the cultural sector. The CRTC implements the policies of the Broadcasting Act and the Telecommunications Act within Canada but, because its jurisdiction is limited to these, does not regulate the ownership of newspapers or of non-audiovisual Internet activity. However, it has taken press and non-audiovisual Internet activity taken into consideration in deciding on broadcasting matters. Thus far, the CRTC has undertaken very little regulation of Internet-based audiovisual programming.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Telex</span> Switched network of teleprinters

Telex is a telecommunication service that provides text-based message exchange over the circuits of the public switched telephone network or by private lines. The technology operates on switched station-to-station basis with teleprinter devices at the receiving and sending locations. Telex was a major method of sending written messages electronically between businesses in the post–World War II period. Its usage went into decline as the fax machine grew in popularity in the 1980s.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">CIK Telecom</span> Canadian telecommunications company

CIK Telecom is a Canadian telecommunications company based in Toronto, Ontario. CIK Telecom's services are notably geared towards Chinese Canadians and Asian Canadians, but are not limited to them; it offers its services in English, French, and Mandarin.

References

  1. ↑ "Companies ready to run satellite". Medicine Hat News. Canadian Press. July 31, 1968. p. 7.
  2. ↑ Liptak, Andrew (March 12, 2013). "Telepost". Postal History Corner. Retrieved September 3, 2019.
  3. ↑ Stephens, Robert (October 6, 1978). "Telepost could be best basis for mail move". Globe and Mail. p. B1.
  4. ↑ Ron, Smith (September 19, 1971). "Telegraph operator was the latest obsolete job in 1971". CBC News. Event occurs at 2:02. CBC. Retrieved September 25, 2019.
  5. ↑ "Telegrams to cost more". The Brandon Sun. Canadian Press. November 27, 1974. p. 5.
  6. ↑ "CNCP May Be Forced To Close". Medicine Hat News. Canadian Press. February 28, 1978. p. 12.
  7. ↑ "Bell wants aid if CNCP linkup wins approval". Globe and Mail. Canadian Press. April 6, 1978.
  8. ↑ Keddy, Barbara (May 18, 1979). "CNCP wins its bid for the right to use Bell's telephone network". Globe and Mail. p. 1.
  9. ↑ "Turning on the future". Globe and Mail. May 19, 1979. p. 6.
  10. ↑ "Reverse CRTC ruling, Cabinet is asked". Globe and Mail. Canadian Press. July 31, 1979. p. 8.
  11. ↑ Speirs, Rosemary (August 2, 1979). "Cabinet backs Bell line-sharing order". Globe and Mail. p. 4.
  12. ↑ "Telegraph offices closing in 7 Canadian centres". Globe and Mail. January 11, 1980. p. 12.
  13. ↑ McCallum, Peggy (June 28, 1979). "New telecommunications services will speed messages". Globe and Mail. p. B2.
  14. ↑ "CNCP plans news service via Telex". Globe and Mail. May 15, 1980. p. B4.
  15. ↑ Westell, Dan (September 16, 1980). "Cable firms plan national network". Globe and Mail. p. B1.
  16. ↑ Stevens, Geoffrey (September 19, 1980). "Perplexing". Globe and Mail. p. 6.
  17. ↑ Rusk, James (January 15, 1981). "CRTC approves CNCP merger". Globe and Mail. p. B2.
  18. ↑ "CNCP Telecommunications". Globe and Mail. March 3, 1981. p. B24.
  19. ↑ "7 cities to receive electronic mail". Globe and Mail. March 17, 1981. p. 10.
  20. ↑ Holusha, John (August 12, 1981). "CANADA'S POSTAL STRIKE ENDS; 6 WEEKS' MAIL AWAITS SORTING". New York Times. p. A20. Retrieved September 10, 2019.
  21. ↑ Chevreau, Jonathan (July 17, 1981). "TCTS ties business increase to mail strike". Globe and Mail. p. B3.
  22. ↑ Chevreau, Jonathan (August 11, 1981). "Telecommunications traffic rises over 50% in certain categories". Globe and Mail.
  23. ↑ "Scanned Newsletter Photos" . Retrieved September 3, 2019.
  24. ↑ "Public Notice 1985-46". CRTC. July 30, 1985. Retrieved September 2, 2019.
  25. ↑ "Ruling may be made next week on phone service competition". Toronto Star. August 22, 1985.
  26. ↑ "CNCP launches 1st link of fibre-optics network". Toronto Star. Canadian Press. April 13, 1986.
  27. ↑ "Public Notice 1987-40". CRTC. July 31, 1987.
  28. ↑ "Telecom Decision 1987-12". CRTC. September 22, 1987.
  29. ↑ Boeh, Kevin K.; Beamish, Paul W. (2007). Mergers and Acquisitions: Text and Cases. SAGE. p. 190. ISBN   978-1-4129-4104-4.
  30. ↑ Gibbens, Robert (September 16, 1987). "CNCP Dialcom for messages to be extended". Globe and Mail. p. B4.
  31. ↑ Romain, Ken (December 1, 1988). "Canadian National sells CNCP stake for $235 million". Globe and Mail. p. B1.
  32. ↑ "CNCP Telecommunications changes name to Unitel". Globe and Mail. May 10, 1990. p. B20.
  33. ↑ Francis, Diane (June 18, 1990). "Let the battle for cheaper calls begin". Maclean's: 15.[ permanent dead link ]
  34. ↑ "Telecom Public Notice 1990-45". CRTC. May 11, 1990.
  35. ↑ Kroeker, Ben (March 24, 1976). "CNCP Telecommunications installs new equipment". Brandon Sun. p. 11.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.