The Who's Who of Canadian Telecom

In an industry starting to see more than its share of conferences again with less-than-inspiring speakers, the 2004 Canadian Telecom Summit has managed to come up with an impressive list of speakers. The agenda includes Cisco CEO John Chambers, Nortel CEO Bill Owens, Telus CEO Darren Entwistle and CRTC chair Charles Dalfen. Chambers is clearly the star attraction given how his company dominates the telecom equipment industry and has its sights set on the telecom sector. But Owens' first public speech since taking over as Nortel's CEO in April should be interesting from a public relations and strategic perspective. So what does Owens say to his first live audience other than everything's going to be great once the company's accounting issues are resolved? So far, Nortel's PR efforts has been a home run – highlighted by a series of “friendly” stories in the Ottawa Citizen after Owens gave an exclusive interview to veteran tech writer Jim Bagnell. In terms of timing, the show is happening at a fascinating juncture as the Canadian telecom industry goes through a consolidation that has seen Manitoba Telecom acquire Allstream Inc., Bell Canada buy 360Networks' Canadian assets, and Telus make a hostile bid for Microcell Telecommunications. The only “independent” left is Call-Net Enterprises Inc., which should have made a bid for Microcell to become a more vibrant national player. Maybe CEO Bill Linton, who will also make a keynote speech at the show, will let us in on his plans.