Cable Atlantic was a

cable television Cable television is a system of delivering television programming to consumers via radio frequency (RF) signals transmitted through coaxial cables, or in more recent systems, light pulses through fibre-optic cables. This contrasts with bro ...

provider serving much of the population of the

Canadian Canadians (french: Canadiens) are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of ...

province of

Newfoundland and Labrador Newfoundland and Labrador (; french: Terre-Neuve-et-Labrador; frequently abbreviated as NL) is the easternmost provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada, in the country's Atlantic Canada, Atlantic region. The province comprises t ...

. The company's primary owner throughout its history was Danny Williams, although ownership was shared with other investors from time to time. Under the name Avalon Cablevision, the company secured the cable TV franchise for the St. John's/ Mount Pearl area (on the Avalon Peninsula, hence the name). It became Cable Atlantic on March 20, 1990 after acquiring cablesystems in the three next largest

communities: Corner Brook (previously Shellbird Cable), Gander (previously Omni Cablevision Ltd), and

Grand Falls-Windsor Grand Falls-Windsor is a town located in the central region of the island of Newfoundland in the province of Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada, with a population of 13,853 at the 2021 census. The town is the largest in the central region, the si ...

(previously Central Cable Systems Ltd). However, most rural areas of the province were served by N1 Cable (later Regional Cable,

Persona A persona (plural personae or personas), depending on the context, is the public image of one's personality, the social role that one adopts, or simply a fictional character. The word derives from Latin, where it originally referred to a theatr ...

, and most recently Eastlink). Cable Atlantic also operated a provincial dial-up

Internet The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a '' network of networks'' that consists of private, pub ...

provider, "The Zone", and a competitive local exchange carrier that provided

telephone A telephone is a telecommunications device that permits two or more users to conduct a conversation when they are too far apart to be easily heard directly. A telephone converts sound, typically and most efficiently the human voice, into e ...

services to businesses and the provincial government. It also offered Road Runner cable Internet service under licence from

Time Warner Cable Time Warner Cable, Inc. (TWC) was an American cable television company. Before it was acquired by Charter Communications on May 18, 2016, it was ranked the second largest cable company in the United States by revenue behind only Comcast, operat ...

, whereas most Canadian cable companies were at the time using the rival

@Home Network @Home Network was a high-speed cable Internet service provider from 1996 to 2002. It was founded by Milo Medin, cable companies Tele-Communications Inc. (TCI), Comcast, and Cox Communications, and William Randolph Hearst III, who was their ...

backed by TCI and Comcast. The company was sold to Rogers Cable in November 2000. Cable Atlantic's telecom division and the company's longtime 541 Kenmount Road headquarters had been sold separately to Group Telecom in April of that year, although those assets were ultimately also acquired by Rogers in 2005, after changing hands four additional times. Other departments were moved to other parts of the city at the time of the sale. Rogers Cable's head office in St. John's was moved to 22 Austin Street and Rogers Television (Cable 9) offices were moved to Water Street, with a temporary studio in Pleasantville. It has since moved to the Woodgate Plaza on Kenmount Road. At the time of the sale, it was rumoured that Williams would run for the leadership of the provincial Progressive Conservative Party, and the sale of his business assets added fuel to those rumours. Williams was successful in becoming PC leader the following year, and served as premier from 2003 to 2010. It was later revealed that Williams had been very close to selling Cable Atlantic to Cogeco, but that Rogers came in with a superior last-minute bid just before the Cogeco deal was to be announced, after Rogers's deal to buy

Vidéotron Vidéotron is a Canadian integrated telecommunications company active in cable television, interactive multimedia development, video on demand, cable telephony, wireless communication and Internet access services. Owned by Quebecor, it primarily ...

fell through.

Footnotes

References

{{Rogers Communications Defunct cable and DBS companies of Canada Rogers Communications