Telus Increases Wireless Subscribers in Q4, LTE Coverage Maps Live

Telus has announced their 2011 Q4 earnings. The company had increased data revenue based on further smartphone and tablet adoption, voice revenues have declined, and they added 148,000 wireless subscribers (74% were smartphone adopters), to a total of 7.3 million.

Here are the detailed stats:

• Data revenue increased by $140 million or 43 per cent to $466 million this quarter. Data ARPU increased by $5.64 or 35 per cent to $21.65. These increases were due to continued adoption of smartphones and related data plans, growth of mobile Internet devices and tablets, and higher roaming revenues.
• Blended ARPU increased by $0.60 or 1.0 per cent to $59.08 as 35 per cent data ARPU growth more than offset a 12 per cent voice ARPU decline. This is the fifth consecutive quarter of year-over-year blended ARPU growth.
• Wireless net additions of 129,000 were higher by 8.4 per cent year over year and included 148,000 postpaid subscribers and a loss of 19,000 lower-ARPU prepaid subscribers. Postpaid net additions were up 36 per cent from a year ago, despite approximately 10,000 deactivations this quarter from the loss of a low-ARPU federal service contract to a competitor. Total wireless subscribers of 7.3 million are up 5.3 per cent from a year ago and the proportion of high value postpaid subscribers increased 1.7 points to 83.5 per cent.
• Smartphones represented 74 per cent of postpaid gross additions in the fourth quarter, as compared to 46 per cent a year ago. Smartphone subscribers now represent 53 per cent of the total postpaid subscriber base as compared to 33 per cent a year ago.

Official Launch of the LTE Network Across Canada

Also, today is the launch of the Telus LTE network (as announced yesterday) that spans across 14 cities in Canada including: Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, Toronto and the Greater Toronto Area, Kitchener, Waterloo, Hamilton, Guelph, Belleville, Ottawa, Montreal, Québec City, Halifax and Yellowknife.

Coverage maps are now available online from Telus. Here’s the LTE coverage map for the Vancouver area:

Major urban centres in Canada are now LTE-ready as the ‘Big 3’ carriers all have their blazing fast networks up. Certain Android smartphones are already LTE-capable. All we need now is an iPhone that can take advantage of these networks!