Canada Showcase for Future of Communications

June 16, 2004

By Charles Waltner, News@Cisco

The future of telecommunications is arriving early in Canada.

Canada's telecom carriers are 12 to 18 months ahead of their counterparts in the United States or virtually any other country in moving their voice, video, and data traffic to converged Internet Protocol (IP) networks. As a result, Canada is serving as a giant test bed of sorts for the rest of the world.

"Canada is a real window on how telecommunications will evolve in the United States and around the globe," says Terry Walsh, president of Cisco Systems Canada. "Canadian telecommunications companies understand the promise of a single, integrated IP network and are aggressively pursuing this vision of the future. This makes Canada a very interesting market to watch."

As a result of its advanced communications development, Canada is second only to South Korea and Hong Kong in its residential broadband deployment. According to a report by the International Telecommunications Union, more than 11 out of every 100 Canadians have a high-speed connection, a rate 60 percent greater than in the United States.

Canada's incumbent carriers, Bell Canada and Telus, both extensively use Cisco equipment to run their state-of-art IP communications infrastructures.

Telus already runs toll voice services on an IP-based core network, and late last year the company unveiled IP-One, the first carrier-grade hosted and managed business voice-over-IP service in Canada. IP-One utilizes Cisco network equipment to route calls and data, while providing business customers with a full suite of advanced communications applications and services. IP-One integrates voice-mail, e-mail, and data via an online Web portal. Leading corporations from the high tech, travel, and professional services sectors are already using IP-One, including, Jetsgo, Borland Software, RSM Richter, and Sun Microsystems, Canada.

Bell Canada has committed to moving all of its communications traffic, including all voice communications, onto an IP-based core network by 2006, a network driven by Cisco technology. In the meantime, Bell Canada is developing new IP-based services as quickly as possible. In 2002, for example, Cisco helped Bell Canada roll out its Enterprise Convergent Desktop, which enables the merging of voice, video and data capabilities in a single computing device.

The incumbent phone companies are not the only ones in the telecommunications vanguard. Cable operators such as Rogers Communications and Shaw Communications are actively pursuing phone service over their coaxial TV wires. In fact, the lines between traditional telcos and cable companies are starting to blur.

"Across the country, communications companies are entering each others businesses," says Mark Goldberg, principal of telecom consulting firm Mark H. Goldberg & Associates Inc. "As the cable companies are getting ready to unveil their voice-over-IP services, the traditional telcos are making inroads into the TV business. For instance, Bell Canada recently filed an application for a cable license, which would allow the company to send cable-style programming to customers over its telephone lines."

Observers credit Canada's regulatory conditions as a key reason for the advancements. And Goldberg says Canada's "genteel mix" of private and public partnerships helps maintain a fruitful dialog between businesses and government in building the country's communications infrastructure. Goldberg adds that such telecommunications leadership is part of the country's heritage.

"The telephone was invented in Brantford, Ontario, and the first long-distance call happened in Canada," Goldberg says. "Canada was also an early adopter of microwave radio and satellite technologies. So, progressive communications is nothing new for this country."

Now, Canada is looking to IP technology to bring even more benefits to its remote towns and cities. Canada is actively exploring the capabilities of tele-medicine by connecting expert doctors in major cities with rural hospitals via voice and video links. Such technologies can help for everything from diagnosing patients to complex surgeries.

"Using communications technology to connect rural communities to major cities has been dreamed of in Canadian public policy for 30 years," says Cisco's Walsh. "What makes this viable now is IP communications."

While Canadian telecommunications companies are some of the most progressive, they, like other operators throughout the world, face significant challenges as the profit margins for their traditional local and long distance phone businesses continue to wane. But Canadian companies are looking to IP-based networks to give them the ability to cost-effectively roll out new, more profitable services that combine voice, video and data in ways yet unimagined.

Michael Sone, president of Canadian telecommunications consulting company NBI/Michael Sone Associates, says Canada's telecommunications companies must not only deliver new services but do so reliably. Otherwise they face the harsh judgment of their customers, who know they now have choices for their voice, broadband, television and other services. "People have little tolerance for networks with problems," Sone says.

Another key to success, he says, is for providers to offer as many different services as possible. The more communications products a customer uses from a telco, the less likely that company will switch vendors, Sone explains.

On both counts-reliability and service expansion--Cisco is helping Canadian providers by offering the industry's most dependable, highest performance, and most sophisticated equipment for building the converged IP communications infrastructures of the future.

People can find out more about communications in Canada at the 2004 Canadian Telecom Summit in Toronto at the Metro Convention Centre, June 16 and 17. The conference will feature executives from Canada's leading telecommunications companies, as well as key equipment vendors. Cisco Systems' chief executive officer, John Chambers, will be a keynote speaker at the event.

Charles Waltner is a freelance journalist in Oakland, Calif.