Allstream Expands Presence in Montreal Adding ~50 New Jobs to Create Technical Support Centre of Excellence

Stock Symbol:  MBT

MONTREAL, PQ, Feb. 4, 2014 /CNW/ - Allstream, Canada's all-business communications provider, today announced that it is establishing a national Technical Support Centre of Excellence in Montreal and expanding its sales team. Allstream is the only coast-to-coast provider of competitive, innovative, end-to-end IP communication solutions exclusively for business customers. Today's announcement enables Allstream to further differentiate itself from Bell and TELUS by offering excellence in customer service that is fully backed by the Allstream Service Guarantee.

"Allstream is creating the Technical Support Centre of Excellence and expanding our customer-facing sales staff in order to enhance the service we provide to our existing customers and expand our reach to even more Canadian businesses," said Allstream National Vice President of Sales, Edith Cloutier.  "As a result of this expansion Allstream will be adding approximately 50 new jobs to its employee base of 260 in the province."

Allstream is expanding its Quebec operations to meet the needs of its growing business customers with a technical support team that will provide customers with centralized technical expertise, better response times and a fully bilingual staff for a better, more responsive customer experience. The Technical Support Centre of Excellence will provide 24/7 technical support to customers across Canada from Allstream's Quebec headquarters located in the heart of Montreal.

Allstream has strong relationships with local technical colleges and has helped shape the post-secondary programs at these schools to ensure the curriculum reflects the changing needs and technologies in the telecommunications industry. The new Allstream Technical Support Centre of Excellence will benefit from having a steady supply of skilled employees from these programs who have been trained to meet the specific needs of Allstream's business and expectations of its customers. It also means that graduates of these colleges will have access to good jobs in their home community.

About Allstream 

Allstream is a Canadian leader in IP communications and the only national communications provider that works exclusively with business customers of all sizes. With nearly 600,000 customer connections, Allstream's momentum is fuelled by the knowledge, skills and entrepreneurial spirit of its employees across the country who collaborate with customers to determine their unique communications solutions needs. Supported by its more than 30,000-kilometre nationwide high-performance fibre-optic network, Allstream's broad portfolio of business solutions are built from an array of advanced communications technologies and services including a wide range of innovative, highly-scalable IP-based solutions to help organizations communicate more efficiently and profitably. Allstream takes pride in its commitment to delivering an exceptional customer experience, and has long been recognized by its technology partners for the contributions made to their businesses. Allstream is wholly-owned by Manitoba Telecom Services Inc., which is listed on the TSX (trading symbol: MBT). For information on Allstream's products and solutions, please visit www.allstream.com.

Forward-looking Statements Disclaimer

This news release includes forward-looking statements and information (collectively, the "statements") about Allstream's future financial results, performance and sales opportunities that are subject to risks, uncertainties and assumptions. As a consequence, actual results in the future may differ materially from any conclusion, forecast or projection in such forward-looking statements. Therefore, forward-looking statements should be considered carefully and undue reliance should not be placed on them. Examples of statements that constitute forward-looking information may be identified by words such as "believe", "expect", "project", "should", "anticipate", "could", "target", "forecast", "intend", "plan", "outlook", "see", "set", "pending", and other similar terms.

Factors that could cause anticipated opportunities and actual results to differ materially include, but are not limited to, matters identified in the "Material assumptions" section and the "Risks and uncertainties" section of the Company's 2012 Annual and Q3 MD&A, 2012 Annual Information Form and short form prospectus dated November 29, 2013, all of which are available on SEDAR at www.sedar.com.

Please note that forward-looking statements reflect Management's expectations as at the date hereof. The Company disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by law.

SOURCE: MTS Allstream

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