NL Short Takes

UTC Canada association formedCanadian utility companies have announced the creation of UTC Canada affiliated with the United Telecom Council in the U.S. The association will open an office in Ottawa, and has retained Laurence Dunbar, a partner at Johnston & Buchan, to serve as its general counsel. The new association will have three committees: the Internal Systems Reliability Committee, chaired by Manitoba Hydro’s Murray Matiowsky; the Canadian Utelco Committee, chaired by Hydro One Telecom’s Richard Bertolo; and a Broadband Over PowerLine Committee, chaired by Telecom Ottawa’s David Dobbin. The association’s first chair will be Ian Collins of FibreWired Hamilton. A web site for the association has been created at http://www.utccanada.ca/. Call-Net sees small consolidated revenue growth to $202.5 millionCall-Net Enterprises Inc. saw a small increase in consolidated revenue to $202.5 million in the first quarter of 2004. EBITDA grew in the quarter by $2 million to $26.5 million compared to Q1 2003. The company says it added 34,000 net local equivalent lines, more than 25,000 of which were for consumers. The total local service line count now stands at over 300,000. Like the incumbent telcos, Call-Net saw a decrease in its long distance revenue, but increases in local and wireless services offset that decrease, as well as a decrease in dial-up Internet revenue. Business revenue grew by 5% compared to the first quarter of 2003. The company cites favourable CRTC decisions, a better credit profile in its customer base and its customer retention plan for bringing churn down to 2.2%. Nortel sells VoIP solutions to U.S. midwest telco, TelenetCharter Communications Inc. will test VoIP gear from Nortel Networks Corp. as it considers using the equipment to offer service across its midwestern and Great Lakes divisions. As part of its overall expansion, Charter intends to deploy Nortel’s Multimedia Communication Server 5200 in a 2004 trial. In a separate announcement, Belgian cable operator Telenet announced it had selected Nortel to provide a cable VoIP telephony network, based on the PacketCable standard. Telenet’s PacketCable VoIP is built on its DOCSIS 2.0-based ExpressNet network. The VoIP network from Nortel will be a hybrid solution integrated with Telenet’s existing TDM infrastructure. Incumbent telcos see growth in Internet subscribersTELUS Corp., Bell Canada and Manitoba Telecom Services Inc. (MTS) each reported strong growth in the number of high-speed Internet subscribers they signed up in the first quarter of 2004. TELUS closed the quarter with 605,200 high-speed subscribers and 309,100 dial-up subs, up 12.3% on a combined basis from the first quarter of 2003. Bell Canada increased its Sympatico DSL high-speed Internet subscriber base by 32% in the same period to now reach 1.6 million subscribers, and saw the highest quarterly net increase in DSL subscribers since 2001, adding 115,000 during the first quarter. The company counted a total of 2.43 million subscribers to its high-speed and dial-up services. MTS saw an increase for its first quarter in the number of Internet subscribers of 11.9%, or 139,904 customers for high-speed and dial-up. During the quarter, the company added 5,821 net new high-speed subscribers. BCE sells stake in BCE EmergisBCE Inc. has reached an agreement to sell its approximately 64% interest in BCE Emergis through a public offering via an underwriting syndicate led by National Bank Financial Inc. for about $355 million. "By exiting from BCE Emergis, we’re taking another step forward in simplifying our operations and focusing on our core business," BCE president and CEO Michael Sabia said May 6 in a media release. "As part of this transaction, we have put into place commercial and other arrangements that are beneficial to both companies. Our relationship with Emergis will now evolve from that of a principal shareholder to a commercial relationship." Emergis recently sold its U.S. health operations, and is focusing on business to business e-commerce. Sabia said that other than the security unit, those businesses were not core to BCE’s operations. Spider Telecom acquires Caribbean firmSpider Telecom Inc. has acquired the assets of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines firm Caribbean Business Machines Centre (CBMC). CBMC offers business and residential telephony services. The acquisition is part of Spider’s international VoIP expansion plans (NL, April 14/04). Spider was previously an investor in the firm. Slap on wrist for Bell over CSASThe CRTC gave a slap on the wrist to Bell Canada for an application it made to revise a proposed new National Services Tariff item (Telecom Order 2004-143). Bell has been in hot water for understating the Phase II cost component of the imputation tests associated with Customer Specific Arrangements (CSAs), and Telecom Decision 2003-63 identified five CSAs where the reported revenues did not recover the adjusted costs. In that light, the commission denied Bell’s application, and noted that it’s been more than a year since the regulator directed the telco to file tariffs for CSAs of this type. As a result, the CRTC has directed that for any contract renegotiations of this type, Bell must provide imputation tests that fully explain the changes made to the revised contracts, associated services, demand and costs. Further, for the CSA in question, the CRTC has demanded a tariff application within 45 days that is in compliance with the rules. Federal Court of Canada action has been noted as one consequence of any failure to do so. Bell disputes the commission’s view, and is in discussions with the regulator regarding the decision. TeraSpan completes trial deployment of fibre technologyTeraSpan Networks, a Vancouver-based subsidiary of Ignition Point, has completed the trial deployment of its fibre-optic cabling technology that eliminates the need to dig street trenches for TELUS Corp. The system, dubbed Vertical Inlaid Fiber, involves a patent-pending technology that includes a two-piece vertical conduit, micro-cables, and secured access micro-nodes for network branching or maintenance, according to the company. Firms combine to create large ecommerce providerDXStorm.com Inc., Toronto, has entered into a letter of intent to acquire the outstanding shares of Montreal-based Clic.net. According to the terms, DXStorm will issue 1.2 million shares and 1.3 million warrants to complete the transaction. Clic.net was DXStorm’s largest competitor in the ecom provision market. "The effect of combined operations will have a meaningful cost savings. Furthermore, the expected rollout of new services directly related to the joint effort will bring substantial new revenues," notes Louis Gendreau, Clic.net president. TelePlus reports 66% increase in subscriber acquisition in Q1TelePlus Enterprises Inc. announced May 4 that preliminary results indicate that the total number of handset sales for the first quarter reached 6,393 - an increase of 66% compared to the same period a year earlier. Store sales averaged 82 handsets per month compared to 68 for the same period a year ago. The company’s finalized first quarter results will be disclosed in mid-May 2004. TelePlus, through two subsidiaries, owns and operates 22 TelePlus branded stores in major shopping malls and five kiosks in SAM’s Club stores that sell a variety of wireless and portable communication devices. TELUS announces quarterly dividend of 15 centsTELUS Corp. on May 5 declared a quarterly dividend of 15 cents per share on issued and outstanding voting and non-voting shares of the company. The dividend is payable on July 1, 2004 to holders of record at the close of business on June 10. Cogeco launches Internet service for small business in QuebecCogeco Cable Inc. has launched a new high-speed Internet service that is designed specifically for small businesses and community-based organizations in Quebec. The service, called the Business Starter, is priced slightly higher than the cableco’s residential service and includes downloads at a speed of up to 5 Mbps, uploads at 640 kbps, five custom email addresses, up to 20 Mbytes of storage per address, and full-time access to telephone lines. Shaw’s spam filter blocks 5 million emails in first weekShaw Cablesystems reported May 6 that its new Shaw Email Filter flagged over 5 million unwanted spam and junk email in the week following the product’s launch early this month (NL, April 14/04). "According to some estimates, unwanted spam now accounts for over half of all email traffic. However, at Shaw, we’re finding that only 8% of emails sent to Shaw email accounts are being flagged as spam - well below the usual standard," said Peter Bissonnette, president of Shaw Cablesystems parent company Shaw Communications Inc. Shaw Internet customers can now select online from four Shaw Email Filter security options.

NL Short Takes

News | May 11, 2004

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