Rogers 2014 Annual Report Download - page 43

MANAGEMENT’S DISCUSSION AND ANALYSIS
CABLE
Our expansive fibre and hybrid fibre coaxial infrastructure delivers
services to consumers and businesses in Ontario, New Brunswick and
Newfoundland. We also operate a North American transcontinental
fibre-optic network that extends over 44,000 route kilometres that is
used to serve enterprise customers, including government and other
telecommunications service providers. In Canada, the network extends
coast to coast and includes local and regional fibre, transmission
electronics and systems, hubs, POPs and IP Routing and switching
infrastructure. The network also extends to the US, from Vancouver
south to Seattle, from the Manitoba-Minnesota border through
Minneapolis, Milwaukee and Chicago, from Toronto through Buffalo,
and from Montreal through Albany, to New York City, allowing us to
connect Canada’s largest markets, while also reaching key US markets
for the exchange of data and voice traffic.
The network is structured to optimize performance and reliability and
to allow for the simultaneous delivery of video, voice and Internet over
a single platform. It is generally constructed in rings that interconnect
with distribution hubs, minimizing disruptions that can result from fibre
cuts and other events.
The network is sub-divided into smaller clusters of homes
interconnected at a central node. The node is reached by fibre optic
cable and in turn from the node to the home, video, voice and
broadband services are delivered using860MHzofspectrumover
coaxial broadband cable.
We continually upgrade the network to improve capacity, enhance
performance and introduce new features and functionality. For
example, we invest in:
• further segmenting our network nodes to reduce the number of
homes in each node;
• improving video signal compression by moving to more advanced
video protocols;
• improving channel and on-demand capacity by introducing new
technology like switched digital video;
• increasing Internet speed with data over cable service interface
specifications (DOCSIS 3.0), which now offers download speeds of
up to 250 Mbps across more than 98% of our footprint and sets the
foundation for even higher speeds; and
• increasing the fibre to the home (FTTH) footprint by connecting to
more homes directly to fibre.
In 2015, we expect to complete the transitioning of customers
receiving television signals over our analog broadcast channels to all-
digital services, freeing up significant cable network capacity for
additional features and services. The analog to digital subscriber
migration will continue to strengthen the customer experience and, in
addition to allowing us to reclaim significant amounts of network
capacity, will enable us to reduce network operating and maintenance
costs going forward. The migration from analog to digital requires
additional spending because it involves fitting analog homes with
digital converters and removing existing analog filtering equipment.
Broadband Internet service is provided using the DOCSIS 3.0 standard
which combines multiple RF channels onto one access point into the
customer premise, delivering exceptional performance. The
bandwidth of our internet service offerings has increased 50-fold in the
last 10 years as we bring new technology to market when it becomes
available. This track record of investing in our networks and
demonstrating the capability to deploy best-in-class service is one of
our key strategies to ensure we stay competitive with other service
providers that provide internet service into homes and business over
copper facilities.
Voice-over-cable telephony services are provided over a dedicated
DOCSIS network. Our offerings ensure a high quality of service by
including network redundancy as well as network and customer
premise backup powering. Our phone service includes a rich set of
features, such as TV Call Display, three-way calling and advanced
voicemail features which allow customers to be notified of, and listen
to, their home voicemail on their wireless phone or over the Internet. In
addition, we offer a wireless alternative to a fixed-line service called
Rogers Wireless Home Phone.
BUSINESS SOLUTIONS
We own and operate some of the most advanced networks and data
centres in Canada. We leverage our national fibre, cable and wireless
networks and data centre infrastructure to enable businesses to deliver
greater value to their customers through proactive network monitoring
and problem resolution with enterprise-level reliability, security and
performance. We operate our own robust facilities-based,
transcontinental network with 100% digital fibre optic backbone and
strategic interconnect points to the US and overseas for cross-border
and international coverage. Our primary and secondary Network
Operation Centres proactively monitor Rogers’ networks to mitigate
theriskofserviceinterruptionsand allow for rapid responses to any
outages.
Our data centres provide guaranteed uptime and expertise in
colocation, cloud and managed services solutions. We own and
operate 15 state-of-the-art, highly reliable and certified data centres
across Canada, including Canada’s first Tier III Design and
Construction certified multi-tenant facility opened in 2012 and
Alberta’s first Tier III certified data centre opened in 2014.
FIRST CLASS MEDIA CONTENT
We deliver highly sought-after sports content enhanced by the
following initiatives we undertook in 2014:
• Rogers NHL GameCentre LIVE, an upgraded online destination for
enhancing NHL action on any screen; GamePlus, an innovative and
interactive experience within Rogers NHL GameCentre LIVE that
includes revolutionary camera angles, exclusive interviews and
analysis and original video-on-demand content;
• a new multi-million dollar Sportsnet Hockey Studio, which features a
38-foot wide ultra HD monitor, a rotating main anchor desk, 52
monitorsandupto14cameras;
• Rogers Hometown Hockey Tour, which brings hockey-themed
festivities and outdoor viewing parties to 25 communities across
Canada;
• exclusive broadcasting and distribution rights of the Toronto Blue
Jays through our ownership of the team;
• the MLB Network, a 24-hour network dedicated to baseball,
brought to Canada for the first time on Rogers digital cable;
• an 8-year multi-platform broadcast rights agreement with MLB
Properties and MLB Advanced Media to show live and in-progress
games and highlights within Canada; and
• a 10-year multi-platform agreement which makes Rogers the
exclusive distributor of World Wrestling Entertainment’s (WWE)
flagship programming in Canada.
2014 ANNUAL REPORT ROGERS COMMUNICATIONS INC. 39