Nortel finally unveiled its highly-secretive Neptune router yesterday – and even invited the media to its facilities in suburban Ottawa. You would think with this kind of hoopla for a new product, the company would have some of its senior executives on hand to provide a little Carol Merrill-like presentation skills. Nope. Newly-appointed CEO Williams Owens or CTO Greg Mumford were nowhere to found – leaving David Hudson, Nortel's vice-president of data product strategy, (whoz dat?) to host the event. Since taking over as CEO two weeks ago, Owens has yet to talk with the media – although he is replacing Frank Dunn as a speaker at a star-studded telecom conference next month in Toronto.

On a recent conference call with analysts, Telus CEO Darren Entwistle reiterated the position his company's interest in Allstream Inc. is not “on the radar screen”. With Allstream's shareholders scheduled to vote this week on the company's acquisition by Manitoba Telecom Services, Entwistle's comments seem to rule out the possibility Telus will make a last-minute, bid for Allstream. Telus' reluctance to get involved makes sense because its balance sheet is just beginning to look healthy again after shedding nearly $3 billion of debt. Telus also has several strategic challenges such as reaching a new collective agreement with its unionized employees, improving operations in Ontario and Quebec, and addressing the looming threat of Internet telephony. Then again, Allstream does look impressive with its roster of large corporate customers and $3-billion of tax-loss carry forwards. One school of thought is Entwistle is content to let the Allstream-MTS marriage be consummated. Then, when the honeymoon is over, he will seek approval from the Telus board to make a move MTS. This is a gamble because MTS shares could climb if the Allstream starts to generate good results. The last time Entwistle bet on the price of stock going down was after Allstream came out bankruptcy protection. He – along with pretty much everyone else – had to be surprised when Allstream shares went from $30 to more than $70 – eliminating Telus' hope to pick up Allstream at a bargain-basement price.

If you listen to Call-Net Enterprise CEO Bill Linton, the emergence of Internet telephony may not be as rapid as many people believe. In announcing plans to roll out a VOIP service later this year, Mr. Linton said he does not think it will been seen as a replacement for the company's traditional circuit-switch offering. Mr. Linton makes a point that few in the VOIP world want to acknowledge – despite the fact VOIP technology works, consumer adoption will be slow until it becomes more user-friendly. As it stands now, consumers moving to VOIP are tech-savvy pioneers, rather than multi-phone households. The real noise in the VOIP market is how incumbent carriers are hoping to reduce costs by migrating voice, video and data traffic to IP networks. In the corporate market, VOIP is being used for many of the same reasons. This explains why Mitel Networks Corp. was easily able to raise $20-million from EdgeStone Capital Partners earlier this week, while converting $50 million of debt into equity – some which came from telecom entrepreneur Terry Matthews.

As much as many people may be tiring of Nortel's latest troubles, the conviction of Frank Quattrone may put the telecom equipment maker in the spotlight again. During his rein at Credit Suisse First Boston, the investment firm was Nortel's advisor for many of the multi-billion dollar deals it made. It makes you wonder if perhaps some Nortel executives received special treatment when CSFB was helping all those red-hot Internet companies with their IPOs. Just food for thought.

For all the hoopla surrounding Google's IPO plans, it seems bizarre the company is intent on establishing two classes of shares – regular shares for folks willing to buy into the offering, and super-voting shares for insiders. Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin claim they need the super-voting shares to maintain control over the company's strategic future but this is more of a case of wanting to eat your cake and have it too. Perhaps Page and Brin didn't want to take Google public but it must be difficult to resist the demands of liquidity-starved venture capitalists, including Kleiner Perkins Caulfield which stands to have its US$12.5 million stake balloon to US$3 billion when Google starts trading. For all their smarts, Page and Brin fail to realize the cost of going public is relinquishing control. When you ask investors to give you US$2.7-billion, you have to be fair. Instead, Google is violating its own “don't be evil” mantra. Of course, when you have investors chomping at the bit to give you money, you can set the terms of a deal any way you want.