History
Like a start-up, the project started a few years ago in Philippe Harvard’s (our CEO) garage located on Valmont Street in Repentigny. With the help of his partner, Remi Mastropiétrio, he set up a telephone infrastructure which today manages over 7 million calls per year. This represents just under 20,000 calls a day.
It was then that the idea of competing with major telecom companies came to mind. With the advent of new affordable technologies, despite the initial investment needed, viability of such a project was possible. That is when Philippe decided to approach some investors.
At the coffee shop
In early summer of 2014, Philippe met with a group of investors at a Tim Hortons close to home. A bit like the « Les Dragons » or « Shark Tank », shows, a brief presentation of the project was made. Within a few minutes, funding was completed. TelKel was born (mid 2014).
The plan
The idea behind the concept was to offer consumers a viable alternative for telecommunication services at television level, Internet and telephony, while being completely independent of existing companies. The objective was to create a package at $90/month, comparable to those at $160 or more by the competition.
Building a network
As mentioned, TelKel is an independent company and does not resell any services from, well known in the Province of Quebec, large telecom companies and in no way uses the latter’s infrastructure.
To achieve distribution of services, the use of fibre optics as a backbone was chosen. The different segments of the network can support 1 to 10Gbps.
The targeted clientele
At first, the company has put its energies on the development of condos, apartments or any other type of residence where dozens of customers can reside under one roof. Thus, we can reduce to a minimum the implementation costs of services and offer the prices displayed.
At the time of the next expansion, private homes will be part of the equation.