The
“Our network upgrades over the past few years have put us in a solid position to handle increased traffic," Shaw president
It said traffic on its land lines was up as much as 50 per cent and voice traffic on Freedom was up 25 per cent, although wireless data usage was down as more phones used residential WiFi and internet.
Shaw's move follows
Their announcements come ahead of financial reports by Rogers on
Rattee says even the industry's biggest players have had to bear the cost of equipping their own employees to work from home and will likely see some of their revenue streams diminished.
Rogers, which has equipped thousands of its employees to work at home while providing customer support, hasn't been specific about layoffs but announced in early March that it was "unable at this time to predict its impact on our operations, liquidity, financial condition and results, but the impact may be material."
Independent telecom consultant
But despite the high performance and value of those services, Goldberg says "a big question mark for everybody is this risk on bad debt."
"I think telecom services are proving themselves to be an essential part of everybody's family budgets. But just like we're seeing government get involved with mortgage debt, I think there's going to be a question mark about the level of bad (customer) debt that could be out there."
Rattee, who primarily analyses the ability of companies to pay their corporate debt and dividends, says he thinks the major telecom companies are all in good financial shape themselves — with cash reserves or available credit, no major debt coming due soon, and the ability to continue operations through the crisis.
But he expects most pre-tax earnings forecasts by the telecom sector will be suspended or cut and, generally, there could be negative EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization) — one of the financial metrics that influence the telecom sector's earnings power.
With Shaw having an
Shaw, which operates one of
However, it also said it would have to take measures to reduce its costs "soon" without being specific.
Canaccord Genuity analyst Aravinda Galappatthige wrote in a research note after Shaw's report that he took some comfort that it still expected that its 2020 adjusted EBITDA will be higher than last year "which is meaningful . . . and may not be emulated by its peers."
This report by
Companies in this story: (TSX:RCI.B, TSX:BCE, TSX:T, TSX:SJR.B, TSX:CCA, TSX:QBR.B)
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