Michael Martin

In the communication services sector, 2006 was the year voice over IP finally took off. The past year saw a rise in the profile of wireless with large projects getting underway in Toronto and rural Alberta. Government regulation was also a hot topic with the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission deciding to regulate VoIP like traditional telephony service early in the year, only to have the new Conservative federal government tell the commission to steer the rules in favour of less regulation later in the year.

With its US$2 billion acquisition of Redback Networks last month, Ericsson is now in direct competition with some of its biggest partners

In years past Cisco has used its annual December analyst conference to introduce new products and strategies for the enterprise.

Small- and medium-sized Canadian enterprises are eagerly adopting more sophisticated IT technologies to help them serve customers better, but equipment vendors and service providers still have some barriers to overcome in servicing the SME market, according to a Cisco Net Impact study released on Thursday.

The federal government is preparing to override the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission

Net Neutrality, a hot topic south of the border, but, until now, mostly dormant in Canada, has raised its ugly head recently. The president of Quebec-based cable giant Videotron, Robert Depatie, recently brought up the idea of a transmission tariff that could be imposed on Internet content providers for the right to transmit content to ISP subscribers.

Will video kill the networking star? Not likely

Small- and medium-sized Canadian enterprises are adopting more sophisticated IT technologies to help them serve customers better, but equipment vendors and service providers still have some barriers to overcome in servicing the SME market, according to a Cisco Net Impact study released on Thursday.