Down to 3 nines
There was a time that I thought the easiest job in the world must have been the sales position at Nortel responsible for servicing the Bell Canada account.
It wasn’t really sales as much as collecting orders. Nortel was the only supplier of network technology. In those days, of course, Bell owned Nortel. Who else would you call?
Those days are long gone.
Few people were surprised by last week’s announcement that Bell and TELUS would be working together to roll-out a new mobile network based on HSPA technology.
The news story that hasn’t been covered is the appearance of two new brands on Canadian wireless equipment racks: Nokia Siemens and Huawei. While most news accounts have listed the vendors as a one sentence suffix to their main stories, Global Insight noted the
significant shot in the arm for the two vendors at a time when the indications have been that capital expenditure on wireless networks by the large carriers has been repressed as the implications of the credit crunch are digested.
For Huawei, this is an especially significant breakthrough in North America, establishing its first supply relationship with Canada’s largest carriers.
The equipment suppliers with the most dominant Canadian R&D; presence, Ericsson and Nortel, were shut out. What kind of technology jobs could have been created with some of that capital investment being retained in this country.
Nortel’s stock is trading at a discount of almost 99.9% off its high, assets are being spun out and the company is a target for a merger or acquisition. Microsoft has been rumoured to be courting RIM.
While the government looks at the financial and automotive sectors, it should pause to examine and consider where telecommunications technology, a key enabler of greener business, fits in Canada’s industrial policy.
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Nortel, Ericsson, Huawei, Nokia Siemens