Bruce Simmonds has been appointed CEO of Minacs Worldwide Inc., succeeding Elaine Minacs on November 21. A chartered accountant, Simmonds is a seasoned executive and entrepreneur with a proven track record of building businesses in both Canada and the United States. Most recently, he founded and served as CEO of ClubLink Corp. Prior to establishing ClubLink, he was CFO of the family business A.C. Simmonds & Sons Ltd. There, he played a key role in growing Glenayre Electronics Ltd. and Dynacharge Inc. Elaine Minacs has been the key architect in growing Minacs Worldwide into a $290 million enterprise. She will continue to play a role in the company as executive chair of the board of directors.

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Vidéotron locked in billing dispute with Bell Canada
Vidéotron Telecom Ltd. (VTL) has launched a formal complaint against Bell Canada with the CRTC over billing practices the Quebec cable company says are unfair. "The dispute between VTL and Bell arises from a disagreement as to whether certain one-way Bell circuits terminating on VTL’s network should be classified for billing purposes as EAS (extended area service) or as B&K (bill and keep) trunks and what charges should apply to the traffic carried over those trunks," reads Vidéotron’s November 11 application to the commission. The cable company says the trunks should be considered EAS trunks. Vidéotron notes in its application that it has held discussions with Bell on several occasions in 2004 and 2005, but to no avail, and now wants the commission to intervene. The company claims that it is owed $943,717.31, plus as an additional $236,477.10 in late charges totaling nearly $1.2 million. The cableco indicates in its submission that the trunks must be considered EAS trunks because "they were one-way trunks; they carried only Bell EAS traffic; they were interconnected at Bell’s request to satisfy Bell’s requirements; and they were removed unilaterally by Bell. If the trunks had been B&K trunks, they would have been two-way and would have been available to carry both Bell and VTL traffic. And, they could not have been removed unilaterally by Bell."

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With TELUS Corp. announcing the launch of its TV over DSL services earlier this month and Bell Canada preparing to do the same at some point in the future, the battle for control of the digital home is going to heat up.

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Rogers Communications Inc. says the New Brunswick government isn’t playing fair regarding the money the province demands from carriers to access highways, which service providers need for transmission infrastructure maintenance.

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Communications service providers are criticizing certain provisions of proposed lawful intercept legislation introduced into the House of Commons last week. Bill C-74, sponsored by Public Safety and Emerg-ency Preparedness Canada (PSEPC) and read into the House on November 15, aims to modernize wiretapping laws that are decades old and don’t take into account the use of new technologies.

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