The Process of Pulling Fiber Optic Cable

In 2015 TELUS is connecting homes and businesses in Saint-Lambert-de-Lauzon, Saint-Charles and Sainte-Marie directly to fibre optic network, enhancing wireless capacity and coverage

Beauce, Québec – This year, TELUS will invest $10 million to connect thousands of homes and businesses in Saint-Lambert-de-Lauzon, Saint-Charles and Sainte-Marie directly to TELUS’ fibre optic network, while simultaneously adding wireless capacity and coverage throughout the region.

The fibre optic infrastructure being installed is the most advanced communications technology available in the world today, and will enable connected homes and businesses to immediately take advantage of dramatically faster Internet speeds and reliability. In the long term, families and businesses will be able to benefit from even faster speeds and have more than enough data capacity to meet growing demand for generations to come.

“We are connecting thousands of homes and businesses in Chaudiere-Appalaches and Beauce to the most advanced communications technology in the world, as well as local healthcare facilities and schools,” said Clément Audet, Vice-President, Consumer Market, at TELUS. “Our significant investment will bring local businesses, healthcare providers, and educators powerful technology, enabling them to reimagine how they deliver critical services, including life-changing health solutions that will benefit all of us in these regions for years to come.”

TELUS intends to invest $1.6 billion in Québec through 2018 to bring advanced telecommunications infrastructure to every corner of the province, enabling sustained innovation, providing access to world-class education programmes, extending critical healthcare technology to more communities, and fueling economic growth. By the end of 2018, TELUS will have invested $23 billion in Québec since 2000.

“The development of fibre optics in Sainte-Marie is welcomed news,” said Gaétan Vachon, Mayor of Sainte-Marie, who was on hand at the TELUS press conference. “In addition to helping develop the business sector in the region, this technology also means that more residents will be connected and will have access to lightening-speed Internet. Just like our neighbouring big cities that have become technology leaders, Sainte-Marie can now aspire to become a benchmark in Québec in terms of technological advancement.”

In the Beauce and Chaudière-Appalaches region this year TELUS will:

• Connect more homes and businesses directly to TELUS’ fibre optic network, allowing for dramatically faster Internet speeds, reliability and enabling organizations to significantly improve how they deliver services such as healthcare and education, to further stimulate economic growth.
• Continue to connect business locations and industrial parks directly to TELUS’ fibre optic network to further stimulate economic growth and increasing their available Internet speeds
• Allow upgrading all wireless sites in the communities to 4G LTE, enhancing the already world-leading speed, coverage and reliability experienced by TELUS customers.
• Enrich the customer viewing experience by adding more choice and flexibility to TELUS’ television services, and adding new TV content, packages and applications.
• Offer enhanced security, data storage and email services to adequately meet current and future needs of users at home and on the go.
• Further grow the important role of TELUS Health, which currently provides electronic medical records to more than 14,000 Canadian physicians as well as health benefits management solutions to more than 9,000 pharmacies, 11,000 dental clinics and 25,000 extended healthcare providers across the country. TELUS Health has invested more than $1.5 billion to bring patient-centric solutions to market that are improving the flow of information across the healthcare continuum and enabling better health outcomes for Québecers and all Canadians.
• Elevate the capacity of TELUS’ Intelligent Internet Data Centre in Rimouski to meet the growing demands of new and existing customers in Beauce and Chaudière-Appalaches.

The capital investment disclosed in this release is consistent with TELUS’ overall capital expenditure guidance for 2015, issued on February 12, 2015.