By Murray Lyons
The StarPhoenix
Saturday, February 21, 2004

A Saskatoon manufacturer of broadband communications hardware has bought two small cable television companies in British Columbia.

VCom Inc. -- the former WaveCom Electronics -- has taken over Revelstoke Cable TV Ltd. and an even smaller cable company in the nearby town of Naskup.

Darcy Parker, VCom's manager of cable and wireless systems, says the acquisition gives the company a full-scale research platform for its products.

"One of our reasons why we got the cable company is that, as we develop new products for the cable industry, it gives us a live test bed," said Parker.

VCom, a privately held company, didn't release the price it paid for the two cable systems. Parker said VCom did not have to bid against any major cable companies to acquire the system and that VCom would be interested in acquiring further small town systems.

"If it's a good enough deal and makes good business sense to make the acquisition, there is no reason why we wouldn't do it," Parker said, admitting VCom is not interested in getting into bidding wars with Shaw or Rogers.

"We just happened to luck into this deal because the existing owners wanted to retire," he said.

Parker says despite satellite TV delivery, there is still big value in land-based television cable systems because they can be set up to deliver broadband Internet.

The Naskup cable company had a dial-up Internet system which Parker says VCom is preparing to convert to a high-speed Internet connection.

Continued @ Canada.com