Heralded as a major turning point for the Canadian cable television service industry, the creation of vision.com, the new industry initiative unleashed Tuesday, is raising industry hopes that the co-operative efforts of the major cablecos will speed up the roll-out of digital video compression boxes.

Amid much Ottawa-based fanfare, cable icons including Ted Rogers, Jim Shaw Jr. and Andre Chagnon took to the microphone to explain the industry’s much-expanded mandate. At the core is the creation of a new commercially driven national corporation which will focus on three areas of service development: Internet access, interactive tv, and telecommunications, and require a $4 billion to $5 billion investment by the cable companies over the next five years.

In an era of competition, it will be essential to be able to offer new services and share the economies of scale over all the cable companies, says Rogers, president and ceo of Rogers Communications. ‘vision.com will carry out the research and business development of new services and bring them to market more quickly.’

The group has yet to get specific about the kinds of services it intends to develop. Sources say the emphasis will be on personal local telephony services, although the group is listing ‘personal computer access, online services and interactive television, and local telephone services’ as key areas.

vision.com’s mandate is the creation of a viable business plan for new services, the development of which will be financed by the cablecos which will then act as franchisees of the product. Discussions are underway on who will head up vision.com, with a decision expected within the next two weeks.

Distribution of these kinds of services is dependent on the dvc boxes, of which only about 400,000 cumulatively have been ordered to date by Rogers and Shaw, a pittance compared to Canada’s eight million cable subscribers.

According to Rogers, it’s too early to say whether a national buy of the dvc boxes will be forthcoming. ‘We haven’t even had our first meeting yet,’ he laughs, but projects that 1997 should see about 10% to 15% of cable customers having access to them within three years.

The industry intends to develop a common standard for the dvc boxes which will allow subscribers to use the same boxes if they change suppliers. Whether this common standard could result in a national buy hasn’t been decided, but ‘people are interested in moving forward together,’ says Shaw.

The Rogers and Shaw box orders, already placed with General Instruments, will not be stalled waiting for an agreed-upon common standard, says Paul Temple, vp regulatory and corporate development for Rogers Cablesystems. A common standard may mean some minor changes in features down the road to make sure the boxes are compatible, but ‘the order still stands,’ he says.

On the whole, the industry is welcoming a united front from the long-fragmented cablecos, but the timing of the announcement – a month before specialty service hearings, May 6, and without a point man in place for the new company – is raising eyebrows. Speculation is the testing of new services vision.com kicks into development may occupy scarce analog space.

‘This gives them the ability to say that empty parking spaces really aren’t empty; they’re being set aside to test these new services,’ says one specialty applicant requesting anonymity.

But Temple makes the point that the types of services being tested could, like Rogers’ wave, require very little bandwidth. But if there were services requiring more bandwidth that needed to be tested on the established analog system, ‘I suspect, that by careful management, we could probably add one service.’

‘It would depend on what the services are and where we’d be testing them. Ottawa is full, in another branch there might be room and Shaw may have more room. The new specialty services have to be ensured maximum distribution. Testing new services, like the ones we’re planning is different. It’s short term and doesn’t require as large a distribution.’

That these new services may find trial space in sectors of the Rogers system doesn’t change the outlook for the next specialty licensees, Temple concludes. ‘I don’t want to get into a laundry list of each system, but generally speaking, in terms of analog, we’re full. We need to be full to compete.’

cftpa president Elizabeth Macdonald supports any initiative to develop new drivers for the dth boxes and hopes the digital roll-out is sped up, but is concerned that a new focus on telephony services may encourage the cablecos to take their eyes off the broadcasting business.

‘I really think (the choice the dvc boxes will provide) is what the consumer wants. But cable broadcasting has done well for them and I just hope they don’t forget where they came from. I hope they would continue to focus on support for the Canadian programming industry. ‘