by jon » Sun Feb 05, 2017 9:22 am
Alberta Government Telephones (AGT) was never, it seemed, scared to expand into areas associated with what they already did. In this case, as part of their national alliance with other phone companies, owning the Alberta portion of Canada's first national Microwave Network, expanding into building and running the facility in Calgary that time-delayed CTV programming to match time zones in the West.
Another example was Altel Data, initially formed to get a larger discount on the Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) PDP series of computers that AGT used in major exchanges throughout the province of Alberta. They got that discount by signing an Alberta-wide reseller agreement with DEC, and soon sold more than DEC's offices in Alberta. Customers loved the single source for support model that Altel Data used: you buy a computer from them and they fix all your problems, no matter whether it turns out to be the computer or the AGT network it is attached to.
AGT later went International, sending staff all over the world to set up telephone systems and computer systems.
AGT was the first to privatize, with a new public company created to own it. That company was given the name TELUS. Edmonton Telephones came next, then a merger with BC TEL, which also included BC TEL's U.S. parent company's telco in Quebec.
There was even a Radio connection in all this. AGT advertised so much that they ran their own recording studio in the AGT Tower, just to record spots. Audio only for TV ads, with the video produced by others.