The last few months have not been kind to communications conglomerates. The value of AOL Time Warner’s stock recently hit a post-merger low, having fallen about 70 per cent from the beginning of 2000 when the merger was announced. The French media giant Vivendi Universal is quickly catching up (or down) with AOL, its shares having suffered a comparable decline over much the same time period. In Canada, BCE and Quebecor are under extreme financial pressure; their shares are depressed and management do not appear to be happy either. Speculation is rampant that they will have to sell off major assets sooner or later. That is in addition to the $4 billion worth of assets BCE announced it was selling last December.

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The creation of Bell West out of the ashes of Bell Intrigna and Bell Nexxia’s western operations has led to substantial changes in telecom boardrooms. Randy Reynolds moves from president/CEO of Nexxia to assume the same roles at Bell West. A new chief of Nexxia will be appointed in the next few weeks. Bell Canada president John Sheridan is Bell West’s chair. Louise Villeneuve shifts from being COO at Intrigna to COO at Bell West. Murray Bamforth will be CFO. Cheryl Barker, who had been chair/president/CEO of Intrigna, moves back to MTS Communications Inc. as president/COO. Before joining Intrigna, she was EVP finance/CFO at MTS. David Rourke moves from EVP operations at MTS to become president/COO at subsidiary MTS Advanced Inc.

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Western Ontario gets NPA overlay, 10-digit dialing
In Telecom Decision 2002-25, the CRTC introduced a distributed overlay for the 519 area code region, which includes such western Ontario cities as London, Windsor and Kitchener-Waterloo. Major telcos like Bell Canada, AT&T Canada and Rogers Wireless had endorsed the idea. Residents in the district will also have to dial 10 digits in order to complete phone calls within the 519 NPA.

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The federal government should take an active role in combating phonelessness in Canada, a new report recommends. While several options are presented, the preferred solution would see adoption of the program currently operating in the United States.

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An American law firm is serving as counsel for an ad hoc committee of investors in BCE Inc.’s Teleglobe unit and is hoping to keep the parent company committed to backing the troubled carrier. The Bingham Dana LLP firm has begun negotiations with BCE but does not discount the possibility of legal action.

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While Canada is one of the most Internet-connected nations on the planet, citizens are not happy with the lack of Canadian content available to them. A new study done by a Toronto consulting firm asked 500 people about Canadian identity on the Internet.

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