Aurora Cable Internet
Aurora Cable Internet was a Canadian company based in Aurora, Ontario that provided digital cable television, cable Internet and VOIP service in the town of Aurora and the Oak Ridges neighbourhood of Richmond Hill. Founded by Jim Irvine, Aurora Cable was the town's only cable provider from the time of its inception in 1969 until its eventual takeover in 2008.
Along with providing cable service it also produced a series of community-based programs to help inform Aurora residents of local events and services. Some of these shows aired for many years including Sports Beat and Our Town. In its final year of broadcast ACI's programming line-up included Plugged In, Bookmarks, Fit & Fabulous, Sports Beat, Our Town, On The Money, Council In Action, Body Mind & Spirit, @aci:The Internet Show and Tigers This Week. Fit & Fabulous was the only ACI show brought over to continue production with Rogers TV York Region.
For many years Aurora Cable provided weekly live-to-tape broadcasts of the Aurora Tigers of the Ontario Junior Hockey League. During the playoffs, every Aurora Tigers game was broadcast with play-by-play provided by Scott Ferguson and colour commentary by Anthony Regan. These broadcasts were produced and directed by station manager Steve Mitchell. Under his guidance Aurora Cable became the first Canadian community channel to broadcast entirely in high definition.
The company used Docsis ver. 2.0 systems.
ACI was the last remaining independently owned cable distributor in the Greater Toronto Area, which are served exclusively by larger national cable companies, either Rogers Cable or Cogeco.
In early 2008, Rogers received Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission approval to overbuild portions of Aurora Cable's service area, a move that Aurora had opposed. Shortly thereafter, Rogers announced an agreement to purchase Aurora Cable Internet, pending CRTC approval.
The purchase agreement was finalized and approved on June 12, 2008, and Aurora Cable Internet became part of Rogers Cable services.
