NL Short Takes

Cabinet sends VoIP decision back to CRTCThe federal Cabinet has done what incumbent telephone companies wanted it to do: tell the CRTC to take another look at its controversial May 12 ruling on Voice over IP services. The commission has 120 days to reconsider the decision. "After careful study of the CRTC decision, and the subsequent appeals, the government believes it is in the public interest for the CRTC to reconsider its decision," Industry Canada minister Maxime Bernier said in a news release. "This will give the CRTC the opportunity to take into account the increase in demand for VoIP services and changes to the overall regulatory environment since the original decision was announced last year." Other than the incumbent phone operators, the Province of Saskatchewan, the Coalition for Competitive Telecommunications, the Vancouver Board of Trade, the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union of Canada appealed the VoIP decision. Supporters of the original VoIP ruling have also noted that it isn’t necessarily a bad thing for the commission to review its previous decision. BCE Inc. relayed its satisfaction with the Cabinet decision in a news release. "By directing the CRTC to review the VoIP decision in light of the TPR (telecom policy review] recommendations, the government has sent a strong signal to the commission," reads the release. "We hope the CRTC’s approach to reconsidering its VoIP decision will at last put Canada back in step with the rest of the industrialized world by ending economic regulation of VoIP services." Bell also took the opportunity to criticize the commission’s forbearance ruling. "We believe the commission’s recent local forbearance decision is also out of step with the policy direction of the TPR report. For that reason, it is our intention to appeal that decision to the federal Cabinet and to seek a decision in an expedited time frame." Rogers selected by YMCA in TorontoRogers Communications Inc., has announced that the YMCA of Greater Toronto has chosen Rogers Business Solutions to provide all voice and data services. Rogers will provide the YMCA with a managed high-speed Internet virtual private network (IP VPN), "enabling significantly improved communications to accommodate the expansion of YMCA of Greater Toronto facilities and programs in the region and across 95 of its GTA locations." Services will be provided through a single account as part of a three-year, multi-million dollar contract. Nortel and Flextronics complete facility transferNortel Networks Corp. and Flextronics have completed the transfer of manufacturing operations and related assets, including product integration, testing, repair and logistics operations at Nortel’s manufacturing centre in Calgary. As part of the agreement, 650 Nortel employees will transfer to Flextronics. "Our goal from the beginning was to create an industry-leading supply chain," Nortel senior VP of global operations and quality Joel Hackney said in a news release. "Working with Flextronics, our customers can expect superior value through delivery agility, global reach, cost competitiveness, excellent quality, and skilled people." Telus warns businesses of automated dialer scamTelus Corp. has issued a news release warning businesses about potential fraudulent long distance calls running over their lines. The company says that automated calls are informing workers that they have won a prize and to claim it they have to dial 9-0, then the number sign. Once that is done the fraudster can use the line to make expensive long distance calls. Telus notes that residential telephone customers aren’t at risk as the call only works if the recipient is at a business or commercial switchboard. The incumbent telephone company urges businesses to take the following steps to protect themselves: Alert switchboard operations and reception staff to this latest phone scam; Implement a policy that restricts employees from pressing 9-0-number sign, or 9-number sign based on requests from outside callers or recorded announcements; and Program the switchboard to block overseas calling if the business does not require it. Anti-spyware workshop coming to OttawaThe Anti-Spyware Coalition is coming to Ottawa on Tuesday May 16 to host a one-day workshop on "Developing International Solutions for Global Spyware Problems". Michael Binder, assistant deputy minister at Industry Canada and Lydia Parnes, director, Bureau of Consumer Protection, US Federal Trade Commission will be speaking at the workshop. "This is a unique opportunity for Canadian policy makers, technology firms and media to educate themselves on the challenges posed by spyware and other potentially unwanted technologies," said David Fewer, staff council for the Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic. Online safety of children questioned in AOL surveyA new survey done by Léger Marketing for AOL Canada reveals that nearly 85% of parents admit to leaving their children unattended online. This compares to 72% who say they would never leave their kids unattended at a swimming pool. "The Internet is like a swimming pool, you wouldn’t just leave your child alone in the deep end. You start them in the shallow end and monitor them closely so they don’t get into trouble," Karen Robbins, AOL Canada’s online safety expert, said in a news release. "Today’s children are really the first generation whose safety can be compromised in their own home, at their own desk – simply by being online, and parents need to be Web-savvy and how the same concern for their children when they’re online that they show when they’re out in the real world." RBC selects Meriton for private broadband networkRBC Financial Group has chosen to deploy a private high-speed regional network that features an advanced architecture developed by Meriton Networks Inc. RBC is using a scalable Gigabit Ethernet transport system to connect its key data centres, allowing the company to expand services and customer care while also being able to maintain protection of customer data. "With ever-increasing storage growth and requirements for data replication, being able to scale our network with ease and at the least expense was paramount," executive VP of IT infrastructure at RBC Dick Swadley said in a news release. "As a bank, we’re naturally focused on the bottom line, and we’re very pleased with the financial benefits we’re already deriving from the Meriton solution." CRTC forbears on Aliant inside wiringThe commission has forborne with some conditions from regulating Aliant Telecom Inc.’s single-line inside wire. "Customers without a jack-ended demarcation device will not be required to pay for diagnostic, repair, or maintenance services to their inside wiring when reporting transmission problems," the CRTC writes in its decision. Aliant filed the application in October 2005 requesting the commission forbear from regulating all residential and business single-line inside wire services in its territory. In granting forbearance on this service, the commission concluded that based on the evidence the market for single-line inside wire services in Aliant’s territory is competitive with many existing and patenting suppliers and has no barriers to entry. CRTC calls for comment on new price cap regimeThe CRTC has started the process to develop a new price regime for the majority of the country’s incumbent telephone companies, including Aliant Telecom Inc., Bell Canada, MTS Allstream Inc., SaskTel and Telus Communications. The current price cap regime, established in May 2002, was supposed to have ended this year, but was extended late last year by 12 months because the commission felt the current regime was still applicable. The commission noted at the time that it would kick off a process to establish a new price cap regime following the release of its local forbearance decision. The CRTC plans to hold public hearings, which are expected to take place near the beginning of October 2006. The commission also expects to render its decision on a new price regime by April 2007. DSLAM marketing reaching maturityThe global market for DSLAMs continues to grow and is expected to reach 89.1 million ports by the end of 2010, up from 76 million shipped in 2005. "A combination of dial-up users moving to broadband and broadband users moving to higher-speed lines continues to create growth in the DSLAM market," a market alert from In-Stat noted. Despite the increase in port shipments expected over the next five years, total market revenue will decline, marking what In-Stat considers a maturity in the market. Alcatel led the market in 2005 with 28.4% market share.

NL Short Takes

News | May 11, 2006

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