PARIS – Alcatel and Microsoft Corp. announced this week they will use server systems technology from both HP and IBM to deliver solutions for carrier-class triple play/Internet protocol television (IPTV) deployments.
This announcement, combined with the existing OEM agreements between Alcatel the two server companies, solidifies IBM and HP as key members of the joint Alcatel-Microsoft IPTV ecosystem. As a result, Alcatel and Microsoft will work together with HP and IBM to deliver these advanced systems to carriers deploying triple play service offerings.
In Canada, Telus and Bell Canada, as well as Aliant, are either rolling out – or…
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VANCOUVER – Tens of thousands of Telus customers in British Columbia and Alberta lost their voice mail access this week, say reports.
On Tuesday afternoon this week, says cbc.ca, about a quarter of Telus customers were without access to voice mail for six hours. Callers could leave messages, but they couldn’t be retrieved, nor would the recipient know a message is there.
According to the cbc.ca story, the system went down again Wednesday morning, affecting 250,000 customers.
Telus blamed the problem on faulty software and said that no messages were lost.
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KELOWNA – It’s hot here in the Southern Interior of British Columbia. And we don’t just mean the weather.
While it was sunny and 32-degrees Celsius Wednesday in this town of 105,000, inside the Coast Capri Hotel was a hot new technical trade show. More than 170 attendees enjoyed the air conditioning – not to mention the 38 vendor tables and six hours of training at the CommTech Trade Show and Training Seminars.
Six more hours of training and vendor tables are on tap for Thursday, too. (Tune in to cartt.ca for seminar coverage later this week.)
This was…
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KELOWNA – A dozen informative seminars dotted the schedule of the CommTech trade show, held over two days here at the Coast Capri Hotel.
Below are notes from two of the 12 training seminars, which talked about subjects such as reducing locate costs, network synchronization, fusion splicing techniques, air-blown fibre, safety, Ethernet troubleshooting, IPTV testing, WiFi, OTDR testing and third party VOIP providers.
This morning, delegates were treated to an hour with Telus regulatory vice-president Willie Grieve, who expounded on where he believes the regulatory system is headed (and maybe should be headed).
He pointed to the crowd of…
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OTTAWA – Striking while the reconsideration iron is hot, Canada’s incumbent telcos have asked the federal cabinet to refer another telecom decision back to the CRTC for a re-think.
As they said they would, Aliant, Telus, SaskTel and Bell Canada today launched their appeal of the Commission’s April 6th local forbearance decision, "and to do so in light of the recommendations of the Telecommunications Policy Review Panel, which filed its report in March.
The companies filed the petition on May 12th, a year to the day that the CRTC’s 2005 decision on VOIP came out – which…
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SAN ANTONIO – U.S. telco AT&T and wireless video provider MobiTV announced an agreement this week to deliver mobile television content across AT&T’s nationwide Wi-Fi network.
The service will enable AT&T customers to view live television on their laptops or other devices while connected to one of AT&T’s Wi-Fi hot spots.
The MobiTV service on AT&T (formerly SBC) includes 15 channels spanning national news, sports, entertainment and full-length music videos from top artists. The deal helps further enhance one of the nation’s largest Wi-Fi networks by offering differentiated broadband-enabled content that consumers are increasingly demanding, say the two companies….
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VANCOUVER – Telus has estimated that tens of thousands of consumers and businesses across Canada have recently received fraudulent automated phone calls informing them that they have won a prize.
The recorded announcement instructs the listener to press 9, 0, number sign to claim their prize.
Pressing 9, 0, # on many business switchboards will transfer the incoming call to an outbound line, allowing the fraudsters responsible for the automated calls to pick up the line and make expensive overseas long distance calls at the business’ expense.
Residential telephone lines are not vulnerable to this phone scam. This scam can…
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OTTAWA – The CRTC today announced a public proceeding which will establish the new price cap regime for 2007.
The new price cap framework covers telecom pricing in all ILEC territories – Aliant, Bell Canada, Telus, MTS, and Sasktel.
The Commission designed the price cap regime to achieve the following objectives
* To render reliable and affordable services of high quality, accessible to both urban and rural area customers
* To balance the interests of the three main stakeholders in telecommunications markets, i.e., customers, competitors and incumbent telephone companies
* To foster facilities-based competition in Canadian telecommunications markets
*…
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OTTAWA – Wireless growth fed Canadian telecom companies through 2005, especially since mobile users are much better spenders than wired accounts, says a report put out today by Statistics Canada.
Two events stood out in the telecommunications services industry in 2005, says the release, the number of wireless subscribers passed the 16 million mark and the number of conventional residential telephone lines dipped below 12 million.
The wireless industry (with providers like Rogers Wireless, Bell Mobility, Telus, MTS, Sasktel, Aliant and Virgin Mobile) recruited more than 650,000 new customers in the last quarter of 2005, bringing the total number…
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VANCOUVER – Telus has added the Migo, a simple wireless phone for pre-teens to its handset lineup.
It’s "specifically designed for parents who want to equip their pre-teens with a simple mobile communications device for safety and security," says today’s press release.
Instead of a regular phone keypad, the Migo has only four programmable speed-dial keys and one programmable emergency key, all of which parents can pre-set to phone numbers they choose and protect with a pass code. Parents can also program specific ringtones to correspond with up to four different callers.
The oval-shaped Migo weighs 70 grams (2.5…
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