Bell Canada has announced they have completed their acquisition of Manitoba Telecom Services (MTS), meaning Bell MTS has officially launched in Manitoba today. Bell says it has completed its acquisition of all 74,398,389 common shares of MTS.
George Cope, President and CEO of BCE and Bell Canada, said in a statement, “Bell is proud to be a major investor in Manitoba’s future, enabling economic development with the most advanced network infrastructure and service innovations for consumers and business customers.”
Bell MTS will commence the roll out of their $1 billion broadband network expansion over five years across the province.
Meanwhile, today also marks the launch of 4G LTE in Churchill, and CraveTV for MTS subscribers.
As for current wireless pricing? Bell MTS says they “will maintain current MTS wireless price plans for at least 12 months from today.” Hmm…
Bell MTS says Easterville, Gods Lake Narrows, Gods River, Grand Rapids and Red Sucker Lake will get wireless services, along with Flin Elon, plus Highways 6 and 75 from Thompson to Emerson.
Bell swallowing up MTS means they now gain 710,000 wireless, Internet and IPTV customers in Manitoba. Total Bell MTS wireless subscribers now total over 470,000.
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Manitobans are going to regret this in 12 months.
One wonders why there was so little LTE coverage in Manitoba before. When MTS signed a deal with Rogers years ago and did not allow Telus GSM/HSPA/LTE phones on their network, I ceased to care about MTS. Good riddance. As to how Manitoba will fare under Bell, they are in the same boat as the rest of us. However, we have yet to see how those handed off to Xplornet will do, good or bad.
It’s not necessarily about the carrier itself being a good service, but about the regional carrier forcing the larger carriers to offer special pricing. Like Quebec. Not anymore. Manitoba will be just as bad as BC, but without the hills.