Canadian Telecom Rockin' with News Today
Where to begin, where to begin with Canadian telecom
news….First, BCE is creating a super
regional telephone business by combining Bell Nordiq, its new rural
income-trust in Ontario and Quebec and Aliant Inc.'s wireline business. The
question is whether it's just more financial re-engineering by BCE Inc. and/or
a shuffling of the deck chairs on the Titanic. The transaction, which will
create a business with 3.4 million phones lines, still doesn't change the fact Bell Canada
is losing hundreds of thousands of local phone customers a year as the cablecos
move into the market. Unless BCE wants to become a super income-trust, bolder
strategic moves must be made.
Meanwhile, Vonage Canada has filed a
complaint with the CRTC over Shaw Communications $10/month “VoIP
tax”. Shaw prefers to call it a QoS fee that ensure non-Shaw telephone
services such as Vonage will work well. Vonage contends this is a net
neutrality issue because Shaw is clearly looking at the traffic on its network
and identifying voice packets that aren't it own. This $10 issue popped up last June when Primus Canada complained about it.
Finally, Toronto Hydro unveiled the
details of its city-wide Wi-Fi plan. The initial plan is rolling out a six
square mile hot zone in downtown Toronto
that will encompass the financial services, university, tourism and
entertainment communities. In three years, Toronto Hydro will extend it across
the entire city. The utility, owned by the city of Toronto, said its network
will deliver speeds as fast as 54MBps. While there is controversy about a
public sector entity competing against the private sector, this Wi-Fi network
could be the consumer-friendly broadband alternative the market has been
demanding. If anything, it's going to force Bell, Telus and Rogers to examine
their Wi-Fi service and pricing strategies if they want to remain competition.
What could be really interesting is whether Toronto Hydro can make inroads in
the lucrative residential broadband business. If that happens, it could spark a
price war as the incumbents battle to maintain market share.
Tags: BCE,
Aliant, Vonage, CRTC, Toronto Hydro, Wi-Fi
March 7th, 2006 at 8:50 pm
Bell dropping its high-speed internet business into an income trust tells us all we need to know about how serious it is about investing in the infrastructure and competing vigorously with Rogers, etc. by building up that capability, doesn't it?
This is how you structure yourself when you're gearing up for the fight of your life?