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Canadian Telecom Summit – Day 3

June 7, 2018 By


Wednesday wrapped up the 2018 version of the Canadian Telecom Summit. Day 3 featured panels on Artificial Intelligence and Innovation (both great topics when you hail from Canada’s tech capital, Waterloo), keynotes from Allison Lenehan of Xplornet, Patricia Meredith of Catalytic Governance and Stephen Howe the CTO of Bell. Then the finale, a keynote from Navdeep Bains the Federal Minister for ISED.

Most of the above content is covered on twitter and in news reports on CARTT, the Wire Report and in the daily newspapers so I won’t rehash those details. One thing I did find very cool, was Stephen Howe showing us in his luncheon keynote how they are installing 4G LTE advanced service to 25 sites WAY up North, north of the Northwest Passage. The logistics make it a 2 year build, with all the required gear being shipped up in shipping containers through a narrow window of June to September in a race against the ice. You have to send up everything as you cant run out to Rona for tie wraps or tools up in Grise Fiord on Ellesmere Island. That was very interesting to see the challenges of installing cell service in a harsh remote location and it made my inner engineer geek out.

I also wondered if it might have been more cost effective to just get every resident an Iridium phone and a subsidized plan ?

So what did I get from my 17th edition of the Canadian Telecom Summit ? A reminder, again, that it is all about the people. The CTS brings a lot of our industry together in one place for three days, to learn, to argue, to laugh and eat and talk, face-to-face. Given that we make our livings in telecommunications it is still vitally important to connect in person. It is a reminder that I need to have such interactions more often.

Yes, I did business while at the event. How could I not ? But it is more than just doing deals and making sales. I got to meet-up and catch up with many old friends who have been through the ‘telecom wars” with me. At the lunches and coffee breaks and networking reception I got to meet new people, from all over the industry and all over the country. I even got a recommendation for a great Ethiopian restaurant in Yellowknife for when we visit this August (thanks Curtis !).

So a big thank you to my friends Michael and Mark for another great edition of the Canadian Telecom Summit. This event is important, thanks for gathering us all together for three days and I am grateful that you do it.

Filed Under: Regulatory

Canadian Telecom Summit – Day 2

June 6, 2018 By

The second day of the Canadian Telecom Summit was action packed again. The highlight was the annual regulatory blockbuster in the afternoon with the addition of Samer Bishay from Iristel and Andy Kaplan-Myrth from TekSavvy to the panel to face off against the incumbents; Bell, Telus and Rogers.

Aside from the fireworks on the stage, and the buzz from the keynotes and the panels the world kept turning. My attention was pulled away by a customer issue that needed to be dealt with. I was able to field the query and initiate resolution with a quick email to India. Twitter then informed me that Kate Spade had passed away in New York. I glanced up to see that Novak Djokovic had just lost in the quarter finals of the French Open to an unseeded Italian player, Cecchinato. And it occurred to me that I now take this all for granted.

When I started in telecom, I learned to type on a 50 baud, Model 32 teletype that served as my order wire and trouble ticket system. There was still open wire carriers (ie wires suspended from poles running beside the railway tracks) and mechanical switches that made a racket when the customers dialled and they completed the calls step-by-step. There were no mobile phones, a pager on my hip served to keep me connected in case of customer emergencies. News was delivered the next day in the newspaper. And the only way to watch a tennis match from Paris was to actually go there.

In the short span of three decades, telecommunications has made miracles seem ordinary. It has enabled me to be able to run a global business from anywhere. I can reach out and instantly connect with my customers and suppliers. The computer in my hand gives me news and alerts, the moment things happen. I can choose whatever entertainment I wish, whether it is watching a tennis match from the other side of the world or reading the ramblings of an obscure middle aged blogger from Northern Ontario.

Don’t take it for granted. Telecommunications really is a miracle. I was reminded why I love what I do so much.The Canadian Telecom Summit is an annual celebration of that.

And don’t forget to call your Mother.

Filed Under: Regulatory

Canadian Telecom Summit – Day 1

June 5, 2018 By


What a Day !
A big thank you to Jaime Leverton and Cogeco Peer One for feeding me dinner and a lovely networking event at the end of the first day of the Canadian Telecom Summit.

Viewing the day from an international telecom lens there were no specific panels or keynotes that were directly relevant but there were many highlights;

– Chris Wright, the CTO of RedHat making the case for the importance of Open Source software versus proprietary vendor software

– the always entertaining Ibrahim Gedeon , the CTO fo Telus

– Michael Weening from Calix outlining the ways that smaller service providers can use Amazon and Google to seize control of the “Smart Home” opportunity to better monetize the Network

– Panels on Customer Experience Management, Cyber Security and Network Innovation that all liberally borrowed from the language of agile tech start-ups . Coming from Waterloo, and understanding a little bit of this environment, it was interesting to hear how each of these panels were referencing the Steve Blank lean start-up methodology towards stodgy old telecom. Having a wife that is an executive in UI/UX made it even more entertaining.

– Finally a keynote from Jaime Leverton of Cogeco Peer One on blockchain. Not a sales pitch, just an overview on the technology and how it can change a lot things, for the better. A true example of #TechforGood

So in my discussions with people at the Canadian Telecom Summit I did find one overarching theme and that was that the traditional telcos and service providers are yet again settling for just being a commodity, a dumb pipe.

With all the talk around 5G and the Internet of Things, including a keynote from Rogers at lunch, the prevailing attitude was one of being happy or content with simply providing connectivity. Even though telcos bemoan the cost of the investment to provide the network for 5G and IoT , they cant seem to think beyond providing the commodity service.

Other players will provide the platforms and services that will take the bulk of the revenues that the new 5G networks will birth. Just as Skype, Netflix and WhatsApp and other OTT applications have taken the bulk of the revenues from Web 2.0

It seems that the traditional telcos are content with that model.

I may be wrong, perhaps in their executive suites they would contest that. But that was may takeaway from what I heard yesterday. Looking forward to Day 2

Timo

PS A final takeaway . If you find yourself at a Canadian event, hang out with the folks from Saskatchewan, they are the best !

Filed Under: International, Regulatory

Canadian Telecom Summit 2018

May 31, 2018 By


Monday, June 4 is the start of this year’s Canadian Telecom Summit to be held at the Toronto Congress Centre. This is the 17th Canadian Telecom Summit (CTS). I have been blessed to have attended each of these events, put on by two friends of mine Michael Sone and Mark Goldberg.

CTS was originally formed to replace the CBTA (Canadian Business Telecom Alliance) show that used to be held annually in Toronto. The first CTS coincided with the 10th anniversary of CRTC decision 92-12, which opened up Competition in the Canadian Long Distance industry. My own career in telecom was forged at competitive telecom providers like CNCP Telecommunications and ACC TeleEnterprises and Decision 92-12 was a milestone. Liberalization and deregulation of telecommunications around the world made the telecommunications sector an exciting place to work back in the ‘90s and 2000’s. (PS see my book reviews here for some books that chronicle those adventurous times)

CTS is a chance for the Canadian telecommunications industry to come together; for networking for sure, but also for thought provoking interaction. Over the years we have seen many announcements, both government policy and from industry, some discussions and heated arguments and some entertaining regulatory panel discussions (for us policy wonks).

This year the theme is “Innovation and Disruption in ICT: reinventing and securing our business and personal lives”. There has been much innovation and disruption in telecom throughout my career and the span of AurorA’s 24 years in business. Competition from Silicon Valley players like Google, Apple, Netflix and Microsoft have radically changed the industry. New technologies such as Artificial Intelligence (AI), the introduction of 5G networks and the continued rollout of the Internet of Things (IOT) promise even more innovation and disruption.

This year I will be trying something new by blogging from the conference. My goal is to post a summary each night of some of the more significant talks, discussions and events from the Summit that I feel would be relevant to you, my readers, specifically from an international telecom perspective .

Hopefully, I will see you live at the Summit. If not, then check in here next week for my updates from #CTS18 . If there is something specific you would like me to cover then leave a comment below of reach out to me on Twitter at @TimoVainionpaa.

Filed Under: International, Regulatory

Victoria Day, Royal Weddings and Fraud

May 17, 2018 By

This weekend is the unofficial start of summer here in Canada, with the first long weekend of the season. It is the Victoria Day weekend, more commonly known as May Two-Four. On top of that there will be a Royal Wedding on Saturday as Prince Harry and Ms. Meghan Markle tie the knot at St George’s Chapel at Windsor Castle. And that will be followed by the FA Cup being contested at Wembley Stadium (Go Chelsea !).

ALERT ! It is an unfortunate fact that the hackers of the world like to plan their attacks on public holidays when network supervision may not be at its highest. There is so much going on that the criminals will be out in force relying on our attention being diverted elsewhere.

Please remember to be vigilant this Victoria Day long weekend and guard access to your switches.

AurorA has to deliver any traffic that is sent to it , so you are responsible for any unauthorized access to your network. AurorA will pass on any alerts that it gets of suspicious traffic patterns. AurorA has also implemented automatic blocking of B numbers once we detect a suspicious fraudulent traffic pattern in an attempt to minimize losses.

As highlighted on this blog AurorA has taken other steps such as the weekly reports of suspicous blocked call attempts, robust and accurate dial plan and intensified focus on high quality terminating routes.

Have a safe and happy Victoria Day weekend and enjoy the fireworks. Blessings to the Royal couple, Harry and Meghan.

Timo Vainionpaa

Filed Under: Fraud

Mother’s Day

May 11, 2018 By

There is a great anecdote in the book “Eccentric Orbits – The Iridium Story” that I reviewed in a previous post.

It was May 9, 2004. The technicians at the Network Operating Centres for the Iridium satellite system in Hawaii and Arizona noticed a high level of dropped calls (more precisely failure to connect) and a very high level of traffic in general. They were confused because everything seemed to be working normal, and the system could hand almost 100,000 calls at a time and there were barely 140,000 handsets in service at the time.

Then they noticed that all the calls were coming from one particular place, massive numbers of people were all trying to call over the same satellite. That is what was taxing the system, a specific geographic overload. You see, there were 146,000 American troops stationed in Iraq at the time. And that year, May 9 was Mother’s Day.

The only situation that could max out the Iridium system was Mother’s Day in a war zone.

Anyone who has spent time in network or traffic engineering for a telco knows that the busiest day on the network is Mother’s Day. Even more than Christmas, or any other holiday. That is why I laughed when I read that story as it immediately resonated with me. All these soldiers and Marines HAD to call home on Mother’s Day.

So make sure that your network is ready for this Sunday, because the traffic is going to ramp up bigly.

And don’t forget to call your Mother !

Filed Under: Books, Satellite

Tales from the Telecom Trenchs

May 6, 2018 By

I am a long time voracious reader. It is a habit developed as a kid and I’ve kept it up throughout my life. Usually, in the hour before going to bed I try to turn off all electronics and spend some time reading. Often, I will also cart my latest book(s) with me to lunches, meetings and appointments so that I can dip into it if I have some time available.

My interests are wide, and includes non-fiction as well as fiction. Philosophy, histories, biographies, business books and self-help tomes are all of interest to me. Over the last year, there have been a few outstanding books on telecom that I wanted to share here with you.

Eccentric Orbits: The Iridium Story by John Bloom

I read this book over the Christmas holidays as mentioned in my Jan 7, 2018 blog post on quality six-sigma. I learned from it that the Six Sigma management philosophy on eliminating defects was pioneered by Motorola (and then exported to General Electric and to Japan). This book covers the history and the fascinating story of the Iridium LEO satellite system built by Motorola and the huge commercial and political battle to save it from being destroyed due to bankruptcy.

The story itself is fascinating, both from a revolutionary technology perspective and from a business, military and government perspective. It gives some great insight into the thinking that goes on behind the scenes and behind the headlines and how one determined man can make a difference.

It is also very relevant to our current times as there are now multiple groups trying to launch new LEO satellite constellations to provide broadband Internet anywhere on Earth; Elon Musk’s Space-X (Starlink), Richard Branson’s (and Qualcomm and Softbank) OneWeb (to be launched using Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin), and Mark Zuckerburg’s PointView Tech (Athena). The race to provide space-based connectivity has drawn interest from all of the Silicon Valley heavyweights.

I highly recommend reading this book as it will provide some useful context to the upcoming space-based battles as well as being a great tale on its own.

Losing the Signal: The Untold Story Behind the Extraordinary Rise and Spectacular Fall of Blackberry
by Sean Silcoff, Jacquie McNish

This is the story of the Blackberry, from the company formerly known as Research in Motion. Told by two veteran Globe and Mail, Report on Business journalists it brings to life one the premier Canadian technology success stories.

This was very fascinating to me as I lived through this time and this story. Blackberry is headquartered here in Waterloo; this is a very local and vary familiar story. I recognized many of the people and events in the book and found it incredible to read it all again.

It highlights the founders Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie and how they revolutionized telecommunications by inventing a whole device, the smartphone. There was a time where the “Crackberry” ( a very addictive device) was THE phone to have; whether you were in business, finance or even the President of the USA.

Yet, from the heights of owning the market, Blackberry fell due to a combination of factors, all outlined in this riveting tale.

Again, highly recommended both as a celebration of a Canadian success story, but also as a cautionary tale.

Broadbandits: Inside the $750 Billion Telecom Heist by Om Malik

This book is now almost fifteen years old. Om Malik is someone I have immense respect for. He was an investigative reporter when he wrote this before he launched GigaOm, one of the top technology and business blogs in the world and turned it into a media company and research firm. He is now a respected venture partner at True Ventures.I follow Om on social media and always look forward to his curated reading list each week.

Broadbandits is another story that I personally lived through, and it also brought back many memories and many emotions, including a lot of swearing. It describes a lot of the financial fraud behind the telecom bubble of the late 1990’s and early 2000’s. Telecom giants such as WorldCom, Global Crossing, and the financiers and stock pundits who ended up causing huge financial losses.That telecom bubble affected me directly, as we were just in the process of trying to sell AMI when the market collapsed. Many friends lost a lot of money in the stock market collapse of these frauds.

Reading this book brought it all back to me. If you have been in telecom for a few years you will recognize some of these stories and may have the same reactions I did. If you have been in telecom for less than a decade, read this book to find out the real history and some of the deceit and lies and fraud that preceded you. Either way, it is important to remember the Wild West days of a stodgy industry like telecom here in North America (and Canada was NOT exempt).

Again, highly recommended.

Filed Under: Books, Satellite

Bell Wholesale Road Show

April 20, 2018 By

I had the pleasure of attending a half day road show on Wednesday put on Bell Wholesale. They reached out to me and other carriers, telcos, ISP’s in the 519 area. It was the first time in my memory that Bell had held such an event in the area. I was curious to hear what they had to say. A long time ago I actually worked at Bell Canada, as a Customer Systems Engineer (CSE) and I provided CSE support to Bell Carrier Services which is now branded Bell Wholesale.

Most of my 35 year career in telecommunications has been in the competitive sector so Bell and other incumbent players were “the competition”. Bell can be a very formidable competitor. Due to the large network that they have in Canada, they are however, also a supplier to their competitors. That is what Bell Wholesale does. The road show was a great way to show their commitment to helping competitors like AurorA.

The sessions focussed on four main areas; IP broadband services, Data Centres and hosting, SIP solutions and Polycom voice solutions. The IP broadband covered a range of network products from 1 Gig Ethernet to entire wavelengths. The extensive portfolio of Data Centres across Canada and in the USA (and London, UK too ) are available to competitors to resell. A whole range of SIP trunking options were also presented along with the Polycom equipment to be able to go with it.

There was plenty of time to meet and chat with the Wholesale team at the networking times before and after the sessions. The sales team was there, but also Product subject matter experts and executive support right up to the VP of Sales and the head of Bell Wholesale. Many discussions were heard around the room about ways to work together.

After the event my mind was racing with ideas. It was refreshing to see and hear that Bell Wholesale “gets it” and wants to work with companies like mine, to help us succeed and provide better services to customers. Kudos to the Bell Wholesale team for doing this road show and I hope they make it an annual event.

Filed Under: Competition

AurorA Newsletter is Launching !

April 15, 2018 By

AurorA and Amitel are pleased to announce that our inaugural newsletter will launch next week.
The newsletter will be sent out twice a month, around the 8th and 23rd to avoid overloading your inbox during month-end or the beginning of the month.

This project has been in the works since the beginning of the year. We have tried to be more diligent on our blog to regularly post weekly with information and tips on topics that are of interest to you. The posts are about international telecommunications, especially from a wholesale or carrier perspective.

Also, on our social media channels like LinkedIn and Facebook we have shared articles and news from other sources that are particularly relevant to sending traffic overseas.

The newsletter will compile four or five of the best posts from the previous two weeks and send them to you in a format you can digest easier when you have the time to do so. On occasion a bonus post may appear that isn’t on our blog or social media, just as a special thank you for subscribing.

The newsletter will be emailed to those who have explicitly subscribed to our list on the MailChimp email automation platform. We have recently adopted MailChimp for our notifications for weekly rate updates and for invoice and CDR being posted to Dropbox. (Sidenote; where were these tools when I first started in business 24 years ago ?)

The sign-up form is on our website, www.amitel.com, on the right hand side footer. It will also appear as a pop-up, once, when you visit our site. Or you can sign up directly at this link here.

Signup form

If you have any comments or questions, we would love to hear them. Also, if there are any topics you would like to see covered, please send them along and we will try to oblige.

Filed Under: International, Website

Global Local Numbers

April 9, 2018 By

Your new Direct-to-Consumer luxury fashion business has taken off. From your home base in Montreal you’ve got the attention of discerning fashionistas in London, Milan , Hong Kong and Tokyo. Now how can you further serve your customers by making it easy for them to reach you when they have questions or concerns that just cant be answered in an email or text ?

That is where our Local Number Service (LNS) comes in.

Your business can look like a local player and gain global access with local numbers accessible from any network (mobile, landline or payphone) in the origin country. Those customers in Milan can make a local call that rings you in Montreal directly to ask about your supply chain or sourcing. LNS is ideal for customer service as overseas callers simply dial a local number and we deliver the call to you.

Local Number Service is easy and cost-effective. It is quick and reliable and can be provisioned with a short lead time.

So the next time your business needs city specific numbers accessible from worldwide locations , call us and let us help you serve the world.

Filed Under: International, Local Numbers
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