Beam me up, Scotty

April 1, 2007
Samsung A706RSome people have been questioning whether the Canadian wireless telecommunications market is sufficiently competitive to benefit consumers. One of the signs would be rivalrous behaviour, including observations about whether carriers innovate.

William Shatner is coming to Toronto tomorrow for a Rogers announcement, with the official preview stating that he will be part of an announcement of a North American first.

I wonder if Captain Kirk’s visit is related to a Star Trek communicator-like phone I found on the Source by Circuit City website, with two-way video calling capabilities – the Samsung A706R. There are other details about the phone and call plans buried deep within the Rogers website, including a description of a Vision Calling Plan, with unlimited video calling for 3-years.

Now you connect real time with your friends with live Video Calling. Switch your phone to Video Calling mode and you will see and hear the person you are talking to in real-time. Video telephony helps to preserve expressions, and other non-verbal cues. helping reconnect people during life’s important moments. Other features include high speed data transferring and a 2MP camera and video recorder.

Two-way simultaneous voice and video sounds pretty cool. Rogers introduced HSDPA last November, with the Sierra Wireless card for mobile data access.

Can it get Scotty to beam me up?

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Launching a new telecom brand

January 25, 2017

Nokia-SiemensNokia Siemens Networks launches itself as a new company today. The firm represents the merger of the telecommunications network organizations from the two companies, with annual revenues in the order of $20B and positioned in the top three global share in each of wireless networks, telco services and wireline networks.

The venture begins with 60,000 employees, including 20,000 professionals working on the services side of the house.

Nokia Siemens Networks CEO Simon Beresford-Wylie will be delivering the closing keynote address on Tuesday June 12 at The 2007 Canadian Telecom Summit.

How Nortel defines true broadband

January 25, 2017

John Roese doesn’t blog frequently enough – I guess his day job keeps getting in the way – but I find that each post provides insight into his vision.

I like these insights.

In his latest post, he talks about his concept of ‘true’ broadband:

My definition of broadband communications is more associated with the experience than the technology involved. In a true broadband communications experience, the technology is so effective in delivering a rich experience that you simply forget about the underlying technology and just communicate.

John’s definition uses a approach that is refreshingly technology independent. People often confuse requirements with solutions. RFPs might define a requirement for fibre, when the real requirement is perhaps the capacity often associated with fibre.

How many people go to the hardware store thinking they need nails, when the real requirement is fastening two pieces of wood together. Perhaps a dove-tail joint would be better suited if it is furniture, or screws if you need more strength. Or nails if one of the requirements is cheap and quick.

There may be a broader range of solutions that can be brought into view, if people will take the time to define real requirements. It is a systems engineering approach. I like to see John Roese speaking in such terms.

He’ll be our closing speaker at The 2007 Canadian Telecom Summit in June.

Federal telecom networks

January 25, 2017

Twenty years ago, I was working for AT&T Bell Laboratories on a special assignment, preparing the proposal for FTS-2000, the procurement of the US government’s Federal Telecom Services. It was an enormous project; a very large team of us got relocated to the outskirts of Washington. I spent months commuting between DC, New Jersey and Illinois. It was also a great team building and learning experience.

I reminisced about the days working on FTS-2000 when I read yesterday that AT&T;, Qwest and Verizon won pieces of the successor network, Networx Universal, potentially valued at up to $48B. Can you imagine a procurement of that scale? And that is $48B green dollars!

Once again, the US has gone multi-vendor, an approach I endorsed last November for the Canadian Government with its wireless services.

I like to think competition brings out the best in all of us.

Spring cleaning at the CRTC

March 30, 2007
CRTCIn the weeks before Passover, traditional homes undergo a massive cleaning effort, getting rid of morsels of any leavened products. Perhaps this ancient tradition is one of the origins of Spring cleaning.

I noticed a CRTC order on Monday that may be an indication that the season is helping clear some old files to make for a fresh start, coinciding with the first flowers starting to bloom in the yard.

More than two and a half years ago, TELUS filed tariff applications for a hosted IP-centrex service, IP-Evolution. While the CRTC granted interim approval for the service about two months later, it has taken until this week for a final determination.

Since the time of that filing, the CRTC issued new procedural guidelines, under which it is supposed to respond to tariff filings within 10 business days.

The CRTC is supposed to issue either:

  1. an order granting the application interim approval,
  2. a letter stating that it intended to dispose of the application within 45 business days of receipt of the application, setting out the reasons why interim approval was not granted,
  3. a letter either with interrogatories included or confirmation that interrogatories were to follow within 5 business days, and an indication that it still intended to dispose of the application within 45 business days, or
  4. a letter indicating that the file was being closed due to deficiencies in the application, identifying the specific deficiencies.

So check out the response the CRTC sent to Cochrane Telecom last week:

The Commission has received no comments relating to the application. Consequenlty, the Commission will not be able to render a decision within 10 business days of the date of receipt of the application.

If there were no comments, I wonder why interim approval wasn’t granted. If there were comments, would it have been easier to render a decision? It sounds a little bit like ‘the dog ate my homework.’ OK – you can have an extension.

Spring is in the air!

Update: [March 30, 11:20 am]
More files are percolating up. Today’s decisions included a file from 2001 where the record closed in 2003.

Update: [March 30, 1:20 pm]
We have learned that there had been an error on the website. The proper version of the letter to Cochrane is now there, indicating that there were comments filed, which is what required the longer review process. The link above will connect to the corrected version.

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