Hi Pat, I believe that a great deal of work has taken place in the background up in Videotron country with Cisco. Cisco for a while was (and I think that they still are) collaborating with Videotron on optimizing VoIP capabilities and open access points of integration over last mile cable facilities, using their own flavor of modems and head ends. Not sure if they were DOCSIS compliant, entirely. Or if they were even using Cisco supplied modems. I tend to think that they were variants of DOCSIS, outfitted for CRTC-mandated "open access" and voice over IP capabilities. Maybe you or Mark L. or others here could comment on this?
For the record, I'm not certain about any of these details, but I will be investigating them further.
The following is a brief excerpt from an abstract (how's that for cutting corners? ;-) from the March 1999 Cook Report on Internet:
cookreport.com
Menard goes on to talk about Videotron's modernization of its cable network
that will allow it using MGCP to offer IP telephony as part of its cable services
beginning late this year. Cisco is pioneering a new business model by building
the network for Videotron in return for a share of the profits. The exact
numbers are kept confidential, but a Montreal newspaper called Les Affaires
disclosed that the deal was a cut on the service over a 5 year, renewable
period.
In Videotron's case, its IP telephony will be sold like conventional telephony
services. When Videotron has competition from traditional ISPs who will
eventually gain access to Videotron's infrastructure, [the CRTC, Canada's
FCC, has a proceeding for third-party residential access to cable], Videotron
will be likely to be forced into selling IP telephony as just another Internet
service.
Cook covered these players again in the December 1999 issue, but there is no mention of their names in the abstract. You'd need to read the actual report for the details, but they again were talking about how Cisco was working alongside of Videotron, this time to effect a means of achieving open access arrangements for ISPs onto cable operators networks.
Regards, Frank Coluccio |
