Montreal: Canada’s fourth largest cable operator, Cogeco Cable, has unveiled plans to invest $136 million in the year ahead, a 41% increase over capital expenditures in ’99.

The funds will be invested in building a local telephone service – set for a full commercial launch in late 2000 – in southern Ontario and Quebec where Cogeco serves 831,000 cable-tv subscribers; in the company’s new video-on-demand service, expected to launch in June of this year; and in expanding its broadband Internet business, which currently serves more than 50,000 subscribers.

In a year-end agm in Montreal, Cogeco ceo Louis Audet said the company’s cable operations generate huge gross profit margins, close to 43 cents before depreciation and amortization on the dollar.