NL Short Takes

SprintCanada expands local telephony in OntarioSprint Canada Inc. has expanded its local residential telephony services in three communities in Ontario: Barrie, Markham and Richmond Hill. Sprint Canada’s facilities are now available to approximately 35% of Canadian households and businesses across the country. "Sprint Canada’s local service is growing at a rate of over 50% per year, as more and more Canadians become aware of our competitive prices, our outstanding service and just how easy it is to switch," said Sprint Canada president and CEO Bill Linton is a news release. Basic home phone services starts at $29.95 per month, including one calling feature. The home phone service and unlimited North American long distance packaged is priced at $49.90 per month. Nortel Networks settles lawsuit with FoundryStruggling telecommunications equipment maker Nortel Networks Corp. has settled an outstanding lawsuit against Foundry Networks Inc. and inked a licensing agreement with the American company. As part of the settlement, Nortel granted Foundry a four-year licence under certain patents, and Foundry in return has agreed to pay Nortel US$35 million. The agreement to end the lawsuit stems from a series of patent infringement cases which began with Nortel suing Foundry and led to a number of additional claims and counterclaims. All pending lawsuits have been dismissed. Aliant and Bell launch innovation centre in Atlantic CanadaAliant and its majority owner Bell Canada have launched the creation of a small- and medium-sized business (SMB) Innovation Centre to be located in Saint John NB. The centre will develop IP-based business applications for the country’s SMBs. The SMB Innovation Centre will provide in-house lab facilities for prototyping new services, including enhanced security features, business applications and contact centre solutions. "We believe Atlantic Canada is an ideal testing ground for next-generation IP technologies as the region provides us with a range of industries, operating in both rural and urban locations, across varying geographies, with many business needs," Eugene Roman, group president of systems and technology at Bell Canada, said in a news release. Trytel awarded IP project of the year award from AngusTelecom Ottawa’s Trytel has been awarded the Internet Protocol Project of the Year award for its broadband over powerline (BPL) initiative in Cornwall ON. The recognition comes as part of Telemanagement’s 2004 Management & Industry Commitment Awards. "Our partnership with Electrolinks was critical for our successful BPL technology implementation and trial. Electrolinks provided a turnkey solution and worked very closely with us to successfully install and test the technology," Telecom Ottawa’s Dave Dobbin said in a news release. IP Applications reaches revenue milestone in SeptemberVancouver-based IP Applications Corp. has reported record recurring revenue for the month of September, topping the $525,000 mark. The company notes that this level is up 67% compared to recurring revenue levels in August. IP Applications says that the jump is revenue is due in part to the integration of remote services business purchased from Voyus earlier this year. "In addition to achieving revenue expectations related to the acquisition, we also successfully converted a large customer that will be announced shortly," company CFO Shay Prasad said in a news release. Minacs to open new contact centre early next yearMinacs Worldwide Inc. has signed a new lease for multimedia contact centre located in Pickering ON that is scheduled for opening in the first quarter of 2005. The company has leased the entire 54,000 square foot building to expand its Ontario operations in partnership with a Canadian telecommunications client. While Minacs didn’t identify the client, the company has been the recipient of some outsourcing work Bell Canada is now doing in Ontario and Quebec. Peer 1 completes acquisition of ServerBeachVancouver-based Peer 1 Network Enterprises Inc. announced October 1 that it has successfully completed the previously announced acquisition of ServerBeach Ltd., a leader in the unmanaged dedicated server business. ServerBeach will operate as a wholly-owned subsidiary of Peer 1 Network (NL, Oct. 14/01). Vonage Canada customers to get choice of U.K. numberVonage Canada is now offering customers telephone numbers with London U.K. city codes. The virtual numbers are available for $7.99 per month. Natural Convergence wins Broadview Networks saleNatural Convergence Inc., Ottawa, has won a deal to provide Broadview Networks with its silhouette product after a year-long market trial. Broadview is a New York CLEC offering converged services to small businesses. The silhouette product is a drop-in technology to allow carriers to quickly deploy a carrier-hosted VoIP service with end user online self-service tools. "Our small business customers needed converged broadband services that would accommodate their specific needs. Natural Convergence’s VoIP solution allows us to deliver an easy-to-use communications bundle that puts the small business owner in control," said Ken Shulman, CTO at Broadview Networks. Atomic Energy of Canada moves to IP to reduce costsAtomic Energy of Canada Ltd. (AECL) has completed its migration to a single corporate network with IP-based voice, video and data applications. The company is now running its communications over Bell Canada’s IP Virtual Private Network Service, touted as a fully-managed end-to-end service that will reduce AECL’s communications network costs by at least 20%, triple the bandwidth capability an simplify network operations for future growth, according to a press release. "These improvements have translated into better quality of service, easier deployment of videoconferencing and other video and voice applications, faster response times and higher performance," said Gary Cameron, Bell Canada VP of enterprise accounts, in the same release. Versatel wins VoIP nodVersatel Networks, Gatineau QC, won an Internet Telephony VoIP Service Provider Award at the Internet Telephony Conference and Expo in LA October 4. "VoIP is on its way to maturity, and the industry continues to look to cutting-edge companies such as ourselves to lead the way," said Versatel president and CEO Robert Mimeault. Technical cert and broadband lab open to serve AB SuperNetAxia SuperNet Ltd. and the Network for Emerging Wireless Technologies (NEWT) has formed a partnership to offer companies planning to use the Alberta SuperNet a broadband laboratory and certification facility in Calgary. The facility is being called the Alberta SuperNet Certification and Showcase Lab, and is intended to help Alberta SMEs developm and test network services such as Internet access, web hosting or applications such as centralized payroll systems before deploying them across the Alberta SuperNet. "This lab, which links directly from NEWT’s Calgary wireless test centre into the Alberta SuperNet on a protected and monitored circuit, will let smaler companies see exaclty how their applications and services will perform on a Real Broadband network," said Axia president Drew McNaughton in a press release. "One of the benefits of Alberta SuperNet is that it promotes rurual economic development by giving communities and industry affordable access to broadband network connectivity. The lab will help entrepreneurs deliver innovative and powerful services throughout the province, creating a showcase for Alberta firms to sell their capabilities worldwide." It’s expected that the lab’s first users will be ISPs wishing to deliver services to rural customers, followed by companies hoping to deliver online application services to the province’s residents. Mediatrix sees sale to SiemensMediatrix Telecom Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media5 Corp., Montreal, has sold its SURPASS residential gateways to Siemens as part of Swiss-based telecom provider SOLPA’s rollout of residential IP telephony in that country. SOLPA will sell the VoIP products as a white label offering to ISPs that own an alternative local loop, so that those can offer their own branded triple-play of voice, video and Internet. Deloitte names Protus IP one of fastest growing tech companiesFor the second time, Ottawa-based Protus IP Solutions has been named to Deloitte & Touche’s 2004 Deloitte Technology Fast 50. The company ranked number 194 in this year’s list after seeing revenue growth of 1091% in the period 1999-2003.

NL Short Takes

News | 10/28/2004 4:00 am EDT

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