Telus Communications Inc. (TCI) is the wholly owned principal subsidiary of Telus Corporation, a Canadian national telecommunications company that provides a wide range of telecommunications products and services including internet access, voice, entertainment, healthcare, video, smart home automation and IPTV television. The company is based in the Vancouver, British Columbia, area; it was originally based in Edmonton, Alberta, before its merger with BC Tel in 1999. Telus' wireless division, Telus Mobility, offers UMTS, and LTE-based mobile phone networks. Telus is the incumbent local exchange carrier in British Columbia and Alberta. Telus' primary competitors include Shaw Communications (in the western provinces). It also competes in the mobile sector with Shaw Communications, Rogers Communications and Bell Canada. Telus is a member of the British Columbia Technology Industry Association.
History
Telus Corp was formed in 1990 by the government of Alberta as Telus Corp, a holding company in order to facilitate the privatization of the Alberta Government Telephones (AGT), a crown corporation that provided telephone service to most of Alberta outside of Edmonton. In 1995, it acquired Edmonton Telephones Corporation (EdTel), the main telephone provider for Edmonton itself, from the city of Edmonton making Telus the sole provider of telephone service in Alberta. In 1996, Telus was introduced to the public as the consumer brand, replacing both AGT and EdTel.
In 1998, Telus and BC Tel announced a proposed merger. The merger was completed in 1999. While Telus was the nominal survivor, the merged company moved its headquarters from Edmonton to Vancouver. The corporate name was slightly altered to the present Telus Corporation. The merger created Canada's second largest telcom, with 22% of market share compared to Bell Canada's 42%.
Large swaths of rural Quebec, mainly the Gaspé Peninsula and the north shore, were served from 1927 by an entity known as Corporation de Téléphone et de Pouvoir de Québec, and in 1955, this became known as Québec Téléphone. In 1966, the Anglo-Canadian Telephone Company, a subsidiary of General Telephone and Electronics of Stamford, Connecticut (later GTE), became a majority shareholder in Québec Téléphone. Anglo-Canadian also owned BCTel, and GTE (later merged into Verizon) also owned services in Barbados, Dominican Republic, Jamaica, and Trinidad and Tobago. In 1997, Groupe QuébecTel was established to own Québec Téléphone. Following the merger of BCTel with Telus of Alberta, GTE sold its interests in Québec Téléphone to Telus in August 2000, which renamed it Telus Québec on April 2, 2001.
In late 2004, American telecom Verizon Communications sold its 20.5% stake in Telus. This was so that Verizon could focus more on its own services.
Currently Telus is rolling out its next generation fibre optic network, and will have invested more than $51 billion in British Columbia alone between 2000 and 2019.
In October 2019, Telus Corp announced it would buy home security provider ADT Inc's Canadian operations for ($527.27 million).
In January 2022, Telus Communications acquired London-based ISP Start.ca. In June 2022, Telus Communications acquired Altima Telecom.
Parent company
Telus Corporation is a conglomerate, and its wholly owned principal subsidiary is Telus Communications Inc (TCI), according to the 2010 Telus annual report.
Labour dispute
After the Telus-BCTel merger, unionized employees voted to certify the Telecommunications Workers Union (TWU) as the sole bargaining agent for the expanded company's workforce. The TWU had previously been the union representing BCTel employees – it replaced the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) in Alberta. A labour dispute between Telus and the TWU began after the previous contract, negotiated with BCTel before the Telus merger, expired at the end of 2000. After Telus made its final offer to the TWU it informed the union of its intention to bring an end to the dispute by unilaterally implementing its April 2005 offer to employees in Alberta and British Columbia. The next day the union went on strike in British Columbia while Telus locked out its unionized workers in Alberta, although (as is common in disputes where an employer attempts to unilaterally implement a new contract) the union consistently referred to the dispute as a "lockout."