Telus (TSX: T) is promising to invest $2.8 billion across B.C. over the next three years in bid to boost infrastructure and increase Internet connectivity in urban and rural areas.
The May 5 announcement comes just days before the company’s annual general meeting in Vancouver.
Telus said it would invest $1.2 billion across B.C. before the end of the year, while the remaining $1.6 billion will be divvied up between 2015 and 2016.
Among the projects it plans to deploy is its recently acquired 700 MHz spectrum for wireless customers.
“(It’s) vital to us to meet the demanding needs of Canadians in terms of access to data,” Telus chief corporate officer Josh Blair told Business In Vancouver.
“That can be consumers just wanting to do stuff on their smart phones, and more and more it’s becoming remote communities that’s using wireless data as their primary source of access to the Internet.”
In April, Rogers (TSX:RCI.B) became the first telecommunications company to begin offering the spectrum to customers in Vancouver.
Telus spent $1.14 billion in February acquiring licences for the spectrum, which was previously used for analogue TV broadcasts before Canada switched to digital broadcasts in 2011.
Because the spectrum was used for TV broadcasting, it allows for much stronger signals to be transmitted. This makes for higher quality video streaming on mobile phones as well as fewer dead zones.
Telus also said part of the $2.8 billion it plans to invest in B.C. will go toward completing construction of its Telus Garden office tower in downtown Vancouver.
Telus president and CEO Darren Entwistle announced in March he would step down from the top job after the company's AGM and first-quarter results on May 8.
Longtime executive Joe Natale takes over as president and CEO of the Vancouver-based company, however, he will continue to work out of Toronto.
Entwistle, meanwhile, will remain with the company as executive chairman — a role that will allow him to oversee Telus’s operations and advance its strategy.
The position did not exist at the telecom company prior to the announcement Entwistle would step down as president and CEO.
Blair, who also serves as the company’s executive vice-president of human resources, said Telus believes in a more dispersed virtual workforce and there are no plans to move head offices from the West Coast to Toronto after Natale takes over as CEO.
He pointed to the construction of Telus Garden as a tangible sign the company is invested in sticking around B.C.
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