The Vancouver Sun reports in its Thursday edition HBO's plans to launch a stand-alone streaming service in the United States that will let viewers sidestep their cable company could be just a few years away from posing a similar threat to Canadian telecoms. A Canadian Press dispatch to The Sun says the HBO service demonstrates that the U.S. company is prepared to follow viewers who are cancelling their cable in favour of services like Netflix. The announcement by HBO increases the possibility it will make inroads into Canada, RBC analyst Drew McReynolds wrote in a note, but it will still take several years because new HBO programming is under an exclusive licence in Canada to Corus Entertainment and Bell Media, until 2018. "We believe Time Warner's decision to offer HBO Go on a stand-alone basis in its core U.S. market is directionally negative for Corus," Mr. McReynolds says. "In our eyes, it increases the risk of HBO going 'over-the-top' into Canada when its current output deal with Corus/Bell expires." On Wednesday, HBO chief Richard Plepler told investors in its parent company, Time Warner, it wants to target the 80 million U.S. households that do not have HBO, but may want to watch its programs.