Persona Communications

Infobox_Company
company_name = Persona Communications
company_
company_type = Subsidiary of Bragg Communications
company_slogan =
foundation = 1986
location =
key_people =
industry = telecommunications
products = cable television, high speed internet, telephone
revenue =
net_income =
num_employees =
homepage = [http://www.persona.ca Persona Communications]

Persona Communications, formerly Regional Cablesystems, is a cable television, Internet and telecommunications provider in Canada. The company predominantly serves rural towns, although it also serves a few larger cities such as Timmins, Sudbury and Grande Prairie.

Persona is owned by Bragg Communications, owners of EastLink and Amtelecom. Until its takeover by Bragg, Persona was the fifth largest cable television provider in Canada, following Rogers, Shaw, Vidéotron and Cogeco.

The company has divisional offices in Sudbury, for Ontario and Quebec, and Edmonton, for Western Canada, although it no longer has a separate head office from its corporate parent. Persona also owns two recently-acquired [ [http://www.crtc.gc.ca/archive/ENG/Decisions/2007/db2007-28.htm Broadcasting Decision CRTC 2007-28] ] subsidiaries in Southern British Columbia, Coast Cable along the Sunshine Coast, and Delta Cable near the Fraser River Delta as well as Alberta based Northern Cablevision.

History

As Regional Cablesystems, the company began operations in 1986 in Newfoundland. It expanded through the acquisition of non-metropolitan cable systems in Canada through the 1990s (notably Northern Cable in 1998), and changed its corporate name to Persona in 2001.

Formerly traded on the Toronto Stock Exchange, the publicly listed company went private in 2004 when it was bought by Dallas-based Hicks Muse Tate & Furst Inc. (now HM Capital), TD Capital Canadian Private Equity Partners (now Birch Hill Equity Partners) and CIBC World Markets Inc.

On May 4, 2007, Bragg Communications announced a purchase offer for Persona, for an undisclosed price. The deal was approved by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) later that year [ [http://www.crtc.gc.ca/archive/ENG/Decisions/2007/db2007-356.htm CRTC Decision 2007-356] ] . Persona's cable services in Newfoundland and Labrador were rebranded in 2008 as EastLink, the brand used by Bragg's other cable systems in the Maritime provinces [ [http://www.eastlink.ca/newfoundland/ EastLink] ] , although systems elsewhere in Canada remained branded as Persona. To date, Bragg has not announced any plans to merge the two systems into a single brand.

Other operations

In 2005, several longtime executives of Persona Cable, including former CEO Brendan Paddick, moved on to construct and develop a Caribbean-based cable provider named Columbus Communications, which currently operates in The Bahamas, Grenada, Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago. [ [http://www.guardian.co.tt/archives/2006-02-17/bussguardian1.html The Trinidad Guardian -Online Edition Ver 2.0 ] ] Persona also formerly owned Cable Bahamas, a cable operator in the Bahamas which is now part of Columbus.

The company's PersonaTV division operates local cable community channels in the markets Persona serves, although the channels' branding may vary depending on the market.

The company launched cable Internet services in 2001 through a partnership with Sudbury-based ISP Cyberbeach. The following year, Persona directly acquired Cyberbeach. Persona also offers dial-up Internet service in some markets, including both North Bay and Sault Ste. Marie, which are not served by Persona's cable division. As of 2007, Persona currently uses Cablerocket as the name for their high-speed cable internet service in the Okanagan region of British Columbia, where their other plans are not available.

References

External links

* [http://www.persona.ca Persona Communications]