Mark Els

Omaha, Stud or Texas Hold 'Em -- playing poker on-line depends on a worldwide network that interconnects a series of data centres dotted across the globe's exotic island locations. Smarter networking technology is making poker's cyber-rooms more interactive and reliable, switching, shaping and accelerating network traffic to overcome first-hop failures and data centres prone to downtime.

Communications experts have been watching the developments at Toronto Hydro Telecom Inc. with avid anticipation ever since David Dobbin was named president in August. So it came as no surprise when the Toronto Hydro Corp. subsidiary recently announced plans to throw a blanket Wi-Fi hot zone over the city.

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Security for the enterprise comes in all shapes and sizes. Its moving parts are coordinated by a mechanism known as network access control, facilitating dialogue between network-based security devices and client anti-virus software.

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A shift from broader bandwidth to higher quality of service for voice over the Internet is being watched closely by the Canadian telecom industry.