Archive for January, 2005
« Previous EntriesAnother Day, Another VOIP Plan
Monday, January 31st, 2005FCI Broadband, which provides high-speed Internet service in Toronto, plans to get into the Internet telephony market this June. 'VOIP represents a major growth opportunity for our industry and FCI Broadband expects to participate very aggressively,” CEO Nick Melatti, FCI's president and CEO.
With so many players getting into the market, how many “real” players will [...]
Dial-Up on Steroids
Monday, January 31st, 2005There isn't much excitement about dial-up access these days but it is a large business. One of the most interesting dial-up “players” is Waterloo, Ont.-based SlipStream Data Inc., which makes software to turbo-charge dial-up connections. It has hundreds of ISP customers around the world, including AOL/Netscape and United Online.
The company is aiming to take its [...]
Google's Day of Reckoning
Monday, January 31st, 2005Sure hope Google losing its status as the world's leading brand is not an omen for its fourth-quarter results, which come out tomorrow afternoon. If Google falls short of the 77¢ a share expected by analysts or offers a forecast that falls short of expectations, the stock could be creamed. eBay learned this lesson the [...]
CRTC's Key Decisions (vice-chair, telecom & CDNA)
Monday, January 31st, 2005Canada's telecommunications regulator is expected to make two decisions as early as this week that could have a major impact on how the $32-billion industry develops at a time when new technology is disrupting the competitive environment.
It is anticipated the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission will name a new vice-chair, telecom to replace David Colville, [...]
TotalTalk Trial
Sunday, January 30th, 2005Maybe it's a bad case of demo karma but my experience with AOL Canada's TotalTalk has been frustrating. After following the installation instructions, I got a dial tone but every time I tried to place a call, it would ring once and then give me a busy signal. The support folks bent over backwards to [...]
VOIP's Impact on Prices
Sunday, January 30th, 2005There has been a lot of focus on how Internet telephony service providers such as Vonage are offering plenty of features at low prices but perhaps more attention should be ont their impact on incumbent carriers. To compete, ILECs will have to lower prices, add more features and value-added bundles or offer VOIP. Valued-added [...]
If not 8×8, Then Who?
Saturday, January 29th, 2005To pursue the 8×8 train of thought a little more, I'm wondering how investors can leverage the emergence of VOIP. Do they take advantage of industry growth by pursuing companies in the hardware, software, security or service sectors? If so, do they stick with well-known brand names such as Symantec, Juniper, Cisco and Nortel, [...]
More 8×8 Math
Saturday, January 29th, 2005If you haven't read the comment on this blog about 8×8 Inc. and its third-quarter results, check it out. “Inspired” - I use that word loosely! - by my posting, someone did some more number-crunching on 8×8's balance sheet and looked at things such as cost of acquisition and sales per day per subscriber ($1). [...]
Nortel's Letter to Shareholders (2003)
Saturday, January 29th, 2005Take a look at Nortel's 2003 letter to shareholders . It's a pretty strange read because CEO Bill Owens is talking about a period of time that happened 13 to 25 months ago. There's not much in the way of strategic insight but lots of optimism about the future, including a nice, warm-all-over conclusion that: [...]
Bell's VOIP Trials
Saturday, January 29th, 2005Bell has been pretty quiet about its VOIP plans but it turns out ther is a trial going on in Sherbrooke, Quebec. Bell Digital Voice features unlimited calling in North America, lots of features such as voice-mail, call-forwarding and voice-mail on e-mail, as well as access to 10 phone numbers. Who knows what Belll will [...]
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