There may be only two companies providing satellite radio service in Canada, but they operate in a highly competitive market. In fact, it was competitive even before they signed up their first subscribers. The Canadian Radio-Television Commission (CRTC) announced approval of the two applications on June 22, 2005, giving the companies less than 6 months to ramp up for the peak holiday shopping season and setting off a race to be first to market.

XM Canada™, the Canadian licensee of XM Satellite Radio Inc., took a strategic marketing decision to launch first. They weren’t prepared to wait for the holiday season either. With exclusive rights to hundreds of NHL hockey games, XM Canada was determined to start broadcasting its Home Ice program as close to the opening of the hockey season as possible.

A secure, co-managed infrastructure solution
There was just one problem. As a start up company, XM Canada needed to get a completely new secure infrastructure in place to allow subscribers to activate their radios and then to bill them correctly. Accenture provides XM Canada with application services in support of its customer care and business platforms, which Accenture designed and built, and the company asked Accenture for a recommendation. Accenture suggested talking to TELUS. “Another provider had already delivered some hardware to us, but in discussions, it became clear they weren’t the right partner,” says Ryan Lausman, Manager, Special Projects at XM Canada. “TELUS provided us with exactly the same hardware so we could keep going.”

TELUS recommended a co-managed solution, with TELUS responsible for the servers and operating system and Accenture managing the applications. The servers would be housed in a TELUS Internet Data Centre in Toronto, where uninterrupted power supply and full physical and virtual security are guaranteed. “Security is one of our key areas,” says Anthony Scalzo, XM Satellite Radio’s Manager of Operations, Information Technology. “It’s critical to our organization that our infrastructure is in a secure environment, where people can’t get to our systems from outside or through the applications. TELUS provides the perimeter we need.”

Temporary services met the immediate business need
The short time to launch was a challenge for TELUS too. The services XM Canada required to effectively manage their business would take some time to implement, so TELUS provided temporary services to satisfy the immediate business needs. “They worked with us tirelessly night and day,” says Lausman. “We were still learning what we needed, so they escalated as necessary, got as excited by the launch as we were and truly acted like part of the team.” As a result, the permanent services were in place when XM Canada launched on November 22, 2005, more than a week ahead of its competitor and well in time for the holiday shopping season. “The migration was completely seamless,” says Scalzo.

XM Canada has now achieved 120,000 subscribers, and counting. When a customer purchases a satellite radio, they can activate by phone or securely online. TELUS hosts the activation Web site and houses and manages up to 18 servers. Because of the importance of these systems to the company’s ability to do business, TELUS included stringent Service Level Agreements in the contract, promising maximum availability.

A true partnership
“I’ve been in IT for close to 20 years and I’m impressed,” says Scalzo. “It’s not just a vendor/client relationship It’s a partnership where we feel that the data centre is actually an extension of our organization. TELUS provides the support we need and they are always ready to accommodate us.” He points to an occasion when XM Canada needed to install a circuit between its data centre and the US on a Friday morning. The company’s regular Sunday night maintenance window would have been too late. “Even though we have a contract in place, with specifics, TELUS found a way to help.”

Lausman shares his colleague’s views on the relationship with TELUS. “We weren’t a traditional client because we had no infrastructure at all. It was all brand new. TELUS was willing to take the risk with us and brought in all the resources we needed. They didn’t act like a giant company. They acted like a very nimble organization that could meet all our needs.”