Manitoba Telecom Services has cemented its status as one of the province’s leading communications providers, as it announced this week it’s reached 100,000 subscribers.

With the milestone, the Winnipeg-based communications company says it now controls almost 25% of the Manitoban market, a feat accomplished after just 10 years in business.

Stan Kurtas, MTS’ VP of marketing, credits the success to its ability to provide services he says its competitors can’t match.

He says this stems in part from its use of the Microsoft Mediaroom IPTV platform, which it launched in 2009. He says they were the first Canadian telecom company to do so.

“[Mediaroom] provides the ability for us, over an IPTV network, to deliver very advanced feature sets,” he tells Playback Daily.

“So anywhere we go with our TV service, we tend to penetrate up to a range of 35% of the households fairly quickly,” he adds.

Among its special features are My Picks, which allows subscribers to watch up to six channels simultaneously, and whole-home PVR, which allows users to record a program and watch it on any TV in their home.

Kurtas says more new features, such as companion applications, are coming. Those applications will allow subscribers to use their mobile devices to change and browse channels, making traditional remote controls and TV guides a thing of the past.

Though MTS has its roots in Winnipeg, by far the largest part of the local market, it has since expanded to Selkirk, Brandon and other communities.

MTS president Kelvin Shepherd says that, while the 100,000-subscriber milestone is something to celebrate, the company will only continue to grow.

“As we continue to build our fibre-to-the-home network across the province, we will be bringing our IPTV service to even more Manitobans,” he said in a statement.