CABLE INDUSTRY OFFERING INTERNET ACCESS
By Adnews Staff
Canada's cable-TV giants are getting on the net. This week, Rogers Communications Inc. of Toronto, Shaw Communications Inc. of Calgary, Cogeco Inc. of Montreal and several other cable companies encompassing 80 per cent of Canadian cable subscribers, announced they have teamed up to offer Canadians a high-speed Internet access service known as WAVE. The service makes use of high-speed cable modems and an advanced fibre and coaxial system to reduce access and download times. The companies claim the service is 1,000 times faster than a telephone-line Internet connection. WAVE is currently available to only about 200,000 homes in select markets. But the cable companies will roll the service out on a neighborhood-by-neighborhood basis and hope to have over two million homes WAVE-ready by the end of 1997. Print ads promoting the service ran nationally this week. They were created for Rogers' Wave division by Bensimon*Byrne Inc. of Toronto. Future campaigns will be aimed at local markets as the new service becomes available. Agencies and media used for those campaigns will vary according to the cable company handling the service in a particular area.