Security, data concerns drive two-phone phenomenon: Bell CEO

As stories about security and personal data breaches make the headlines, wireless subscribers are adopting a second phone to detach from company use, BCE Inc. head George Cope said at an investors’ conference on Tuesday. For a while, telecom executives and analysts alike have talked about the uptake in multiple devices as one trend driving a healthy wireless market, but seldom put that in the context of high-profile security and data issues that have been in the news in recent weeks. “If you think about corporations, you think about security issues, you think about people's’ privacy and their data issues. I think all those things drive people toward wanting to have their commercial product probably separate from their personal product, and I think that’s probably going to maybe continue...to drive this two-phone phenomenon,” Cope said at J.P. Morgan’s Global Technology, Media and Telecom conference in Boston, Massachusetts. The most high-profile case is the entangled web involving Facebook Inc., Cambridge Analytica, AggregateIQ and other companies that have harvested data to move political agendas. Last week, the House of Commons ethics committee heard big internet companies like Facebook and Alphabet Inc. described as built on “the principle of mass surveillance.” The multi-device phenomenon may go some way to explain some of the wireless industry’s record numbers as of late. The first quarter of 2018 saw historical net additions from Rogers Communications Inc. and Shaw Communications Inc. Bell added 68,487 net subs in its first quarter, up 91.4 per cent over the year. Cope told J.P. Morgan’s telecom analyst Richard Choe that the trend could mean a changing dynamic in the industry, which the United States could also see, as those issues push citizens to protect the personal from the commercial. Another notable topic of late is the postpaid wireless churn numbers coming from industry players. Telus Corp., whose executive vice-president Doug French was also hosted by Choe Tuesday, saw that churn dip to an average of 0.85 per cent in February and March after ballooning to 1.15 in January following the competitive holiday season. In its first quarter, Bell reported a slight dip in postpaid churn to 1.13 per cent. Cope told Choe Tuesday, in reply to a question about guidance for churn over time, that he “wouldn’t be modelling churn coming down in Canada.” In fact, you may see a little reduction, “but I wouldn’t have a dramatic change expected, for sure,” he said. The bank also played host to Rogers, and, like those earlier in the day, touched on several trends and segments of the telecoms’ business. Choe asked specifically about the room left for growth in wireless. “We think there’s a continued opportunity for more revenue and growth,” Rogers’ head Joe Natale said. Natale said, on average, Canada has roughly one gigabyte of data usage per month per subscriber, three times less than the United States because of the availability of unlimited data plans south of the border. Natale said “we don’t see any overall push for unlimited in Canada” partly because there’s an expectation of network quality. He also said there’s still room to monetize data and push the average usage up to 1.5 and eventually two gigabytes or more in the future, based on “providing value. The market is growing by about 30 to 40 per cent per year in terms of increased demand in Canada,” he said. “The key is to make sure we continue to deliver on that demand to customers, at the same time drive out costs in our business and infrastructure.” — With reporting by Ahmad Hathout at ahathout@thewirereport.ca and editing by Anja Karadeglija at akarad@thewirereport.ca

Security, data concerns drive two-phone phenomenon: Bell CEO

News | May 16, 2018

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Security, data concerns drive two-phone phenomenon: Bell CEO

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