NL Short Takes

CRTC estimates cost of regulating telecomThe CRTC has estimated that it will cost approximately $24 million to regulate the telecommunications industry in 2005-2006. There were a couple of minor adjustments in the 2004-2005 period, which slightly affected the overall cost for the subsequent period. The commission notes that it will have to recover $24.1 million to regulate the telecom industry this fiscal year. TELUS adjusts offer to TWU in ongoing battleTELUS Corp. has offered an addendum to the Telecommunications Workers Union in their long-standing collective bargaining dispute. Key parts of the addendum include a $10-million payment to the TWU pension plan; $8,000 lump-sum payments to Alberta-based technicians; variable pay increases to unionized employees in British Columbia; a commitment to reinvest savings resulting from the contracting out of non-core functions in the province where the savings originated. "Our offer is generous, provides job security, is affordable for shareholders, and gives the flexibility we need to be successful in an increasingly competitive and changing marketplace," company president and CEO Darren Entwistle said in a news release. "It is time that TELUS’ bargaining unit team members have the opportunity to decide by the TWU taking the offer to vote without further delay." TWU reacted angrily to the offer, noting that all it does is drive a wedge between different bargaining unit employees. The union specifically noted that the addendum provided no benefits to female employees. March Networks to target Latin America, EuropeMarch Networks plans to put greater emphasis on winning business in Latin America and Europe. Brazil and Argentina will be the primary focus for the company in fiscal year 2006. The region represented 26% of the company’s revenue last fiscal year, with the majority coming from Mexico. There is tremendous growth opportunity in Europe. That region represented only 1% of revenue last year. For the year ended April 30, the company had revenue of $42.7 million with earnings of $6 million. In the fourth quarter, revenue was $13.5 million with income of $2.5 million. Vidéotron and union agree to extend contractsThe union representing workers at Vidéotron has accepted an agreement in principle to extend collective agreements to Dec. 31, 2009 in the Montreal and Quebec City regions until Jan. 31, 2010 in Saguenay Lac St-Jean, and until Aug. 31, 2011 in Gatineau. Vidéotron management sought increased operational flexibility, so that the company could make investments in network modernization and new product development such as its Voice over IP offering. "Our employees are a key factor in our growth," Vidéotron president and CEO Robert Dépatie said in a news release. "This agreement will make us still more competitive in the marketplace and help us deliver the best possible customer experience." Intelligent communities a high priority, conference toldA real-time poll of delegates at the 2005 Canadian Telecom Summit revealed that 70% said that the most important goal for Canada is to create a number of intelligent communities. The voting equipment and software was provided by Sharpe Decisions Inc., "a leader in real-time decision-making" and used during a CEO panel session, called Creating the Intelligent Community. More than half of the delegates who attended the session noted that public-private partnerships were the best way for businesses to participate in the creation of these intelligent communities. In terms of economic expansion, two-thirds of respondents said that creating intelligent communities would be very beneficial, and 25% said that it would be at least moderately beneficial. Star Choice expands AOL Canada offeringsCustomers of Star Choice Communications Inc. can now choose from more AOL Canada services. These include Netscape Nitro, AOL Max, and AOL’s Voice over IP service, TotalTalk. "We are very excited about the opportunity to provide our Star Choice customers with a variety of new Internet-based communication services at an affordable price," Jim Cummins, VP of Star Choice’s national operations, said in a news release. Craig Wallace, president and CEO of AOL Canada added, "This extension of our existing relationship with Star Choice and their customers is a significant step in AOL Canada’s goal of offering enhanced Internet-based services to all Canadians." Shaw introduces video mail service to subscribersShaw Communications’ cable arm has introduced video mail to its subscribers. "Shaw Video Mail is a next-generation service that is perfectly supported by the recent speed enhancements we’ve introduced. We’ve consistently made positive changes to our high-speed Internet service to enhance our customers’ online experience and will continue to do so in the future," Shaw president Peter Bissonnette said in a news release. Fluke Networks adds real-time VoIP diagnosticsMississauga ON-based Fluke Networks Canada is adding real-time Voice over IP diagnostics, including call-by-call quality of service tracking, are now part of its OptiView Link Analyzer and Protocol Expert network monitoring and analysis system. "Voice over IP is one of the most critical applications being deployed by corporations around the globe. Yet many IT managers can’t check to see if their existing infrastructure will support VoIP, and even fewer have a plan for managing VoIP once it’s deployed. Without useful monitoring and troubleshooting solutions like the new versions of OptiView Link Analyzer and OptiView Protocol Expert, call quality may cause nothing but user complaints and frustration," Fluke Canada’s product manager, Brad Masterson, said in a news release. McAfee and Toshiba partner on security offeringsToshiba has inked an agreement with McAfee Inc. to include the security provider’s products on current and future Toshiba notebooks. "We are pleased to be working with Toshiba to provide consumers improved control over their PCs and Internet experience with simple, easy-to-use, comprehensive protection against increasingly sophisticated Internet threats that may compromise their privacy or identity online, McAfee’s senior VP of worldwide consumer sales Todd Gebhart said in a news release. Nimcat inks deal with TecomNimcat Networks has partnered with Tecom to integrate each companies technology into a turnkey product offering with the result being an enterprise-class Voice over IP telephony system that addresses the small- and medium-sized business market. "We are partnering with Nimcat for nimX’s portability, rich feature set, scalability and upgrade path, among others. We were also quite impressed with the company’s integration engineering team," Tecom’s director of product marketing and management Kevin Shen said in a news release. According to Infonetics, 29% of large, 16% of medium and 4% of small organizations in North America will have adopted VoIP services by the end of 2005. In other Nimcat news, the company demonstrated its embedded peer-to-peer software over partner VoIP terminals at Supercom 2005 in Chicago earlier this month. The company also announced that it has made a white paper available, discussing how carriers can effectively target the SMB market. Bell acquires Winnipeg systems integratorBell Canada announced on June 8 the acquisition of Winnipeg-based CSB Systems, an enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems integrator. CSB will be integrated into Bell Business Solutions to further expand the company integrated IT solutions for small- and medium-sized businesses. "Adding CSB Systems in-depth ERP knowledge, expertise in software solutions, consulting and projet methodology to Bell underscores our commitment to provide comprehensive end-to-end IT solutions to businesses across the country," Robert Courteau, president and CEO of Bell Business Solutions, said in a news release. Rogers Cable expands high-speed offering to the homeRogers Cable has introduced an ultra-lite high-speed Internet service that provides users with download speeds up to twice as fast as dial-up. For $19.95 per month, the new service offers customers download speeds up to 128 kbps and upload speeds up to 64 kbps. The key to this offering is that it eliminates the need to dial in to a dial-up provider and it eliminates the need to have a second phone line installed. Subscribers to this level of service get nearly all the features as other high-speed users including spam protection, anti-virus software, and more.

NL Short Takes

News | June 23, 2005

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