After much speculation, Rogers Communications is holding a press conference this afternoon to talk about its telephony plans. While the company may not roll out service on July 1, it is meeting the “deadline” set by CEO Ted Rogers who want the move into local telephony to coincide with the 20th anniversary of Rogers Wireless. I'm not sure if the noise coming from Vonage's Canadian headquarters is champagne being popped now that Rogers will help educate the market about VOIP, or if it's screams of panic now that a major cableco into getting into the game in Ontario. My take is Rogers will aggressively go after existing customers who already have two service (high-speed, cable or wireless) and look for the low-hanging fruit before it pursues the mass market. Of course, if disgruntled Bell customers want to sign up for the service, which may be sold for about $40 a month, that's fine too.
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I'm not sure if the noise coming from Vonage's Canadian headquarters is champagne being popped now that Rogers will help educate the market about VOIP.
I wouldn't count on it. No cable telco in Canada or, I think, the U.S. has been willing to touch the term “VoIP” with a ten-foot pole. Nor offer a access-independent service which would highlight how access-segment VoIP differs from access-segment TDM, for that matter.
Rogers is not likely to be the exception to the rule. Especially with polls like this one around.