Yak Communications, a long distance and dial around provider, has jumped into the local telephony market with a service priced at a competitive $34.95 per month. The company claims that there aren't any hidden fees and the monthly price will not creep up as does service from the incumbent telephone companies. Other features included in Yak's telephone service include voicemail, caller ID, call forwarding, call waiting and conference calling. Yak, which doesn't have its facilities, will lease network capacity from Telus Corp. to provide the service.  

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Cygnal Technologies Corp. has announced that it is negotiating with one its principal lenders regarding debt owed and continued access to financing from that particular lender under a credit facility due January 2008. The lender has already indicated that it is unwilling to extend the maturity date of the credit facility, unless the company opts to sell certain assets or reduce operations. "Cygnal is engaged in discussions with other parties regarding strategic alternatives, including the refinancing of Cygnal's existing secured debt, the sale of an equity interest in Cygnal and a sale of the entire company, and is reviewing other options," reads a statement.

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Recognizing the importance of the small and medium-sized business to the economy, Cisco Systems Inc. is increasing its commitment to sector by improving its SMB offerings. Cisco's Smart Business Communications System (SBCS) has been upgraded to include technical services, the tripling of unified communications capabilities up to 48 users, and the addition of four new Ethernet switches. The systems provides voice, data, video, security and wireless while also integrating with desktop applications such as calendar, email and customer relationship management programs. Cisco's SBCS is an integrated system with hardware, unified communications applications and system management tools.

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At its annual general meeting in Ottawa today the membership of the Canadian Association of Broadcasters adopted a resolution opposing the music labels' copyright payment demand, stating "the CAB will take all measures to publicly oppose this egregious and abusive demand by the record labels including taking action before Parliament, the Copyright Board and the courts." While private broadcasters currently pay almost $70 million a year in the form of tariffs to four different rights holder collectives, the record labels are demanding an additional payment close to $50 million annually for the right to make technical reproductions that are secondary to playing the music over the air – a right for which radio broadcasters already pay, according to the CAB.  "While broadcasters recognize that artists, producers and other rights-holders should be fairly compensated for the use of their songs, our industry believes that this tariff proposal is a blatant abuse of the principles of the Copyright Act," said CAB president and CEO Glenn O'Farrell. "This demand won't help the record labels – it will only hurt one of the few areas that is still working well for them in the digital world." 

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