Maritime minnow battles Bell to draw - an article from the Ottawa Citizen:
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ottawacitizen.com
Wednesday 24 June 1998
Maritime minnow battles Bell to
draw
Richard Bray
The Ottawa Citizen
A little Nova Scotia telecommunications software company recently took on mighty Bell Canada, and lost. And then won.
InfoInterActive (IIA) of Bedford, N.S., a company of only 22 people, launched Internet Call Manager (ICM) in Canada in 1997.
It's a form of "call waiting" for the Internet. When call come in while users are on the Net, messages pop up on their computer screen with the caller's name and number, along with options for handling the call.
Because so many people use a single telephone line for both Internet access and voice calls, the North American market for Internet call waiting has
been estimated as high as $2 billion. Which explains why IIA was so hot on
the prospects for its ICM service.
Unfortunately, the Nova Scotia company hit a big roadblock when it tried
to launch its service in Quebec and Ontario.
Bell Canada, which operates in those provinces, blocked ICM users from
forwarding incoming calls to Bell's popular voice mail service. By blocking
access to its voice mail, Bell limited the usefulness of the Nova Scotia
company's product.
"Bell cited technical reasons, but this was obviously baloney," said Mike
Smith, InfoInterActive's executive vice-president. "All of our telephone
company partners offer both (ICM and voice mail) and the service works
perfectly."
IIA complained to the Canadian Radio Television and Telecommunications
Commission (CRTC) that Bell was unfairly using its monopoly over local
phone service to engage in anti-competitive activity.
After seven months, the CRTC agreed Bell Canada was within its rights to
block the connection, because the voice mail market was open to
competition and IIA was free to start its own voice mail service.
Which is exactly what IIA ultimately chose to do. Says Mike Smith: "When
the voice-mail issue came up last year, we said 'forget Bell' and installed our
own voice-mail system in Metro Toronto for customers who wanted it," he
said.
"We'll do the same in other markets if people want it, but frankly there
hasn't been a big demand. So in the end, all Bell achieved was to harm its
own voice-mail customers who wanted our Internet Call Manager service."
Telecommunications consultant Ian Angus agrees that Bell may not have
helped its competitive position with its treatment of InfoInterActive.
"I think Bell is being foolish," said Mr. Angus. "To be frank, I think they
would have been smarter to do a deal with the ICM people, to get the
product to market a year ago and probably boost their own voice mail
sales. This way, they end up with a competitor in the voice-mail business."
Two weeks ago, Bell Canada launched it's own competing service, Internet
Call Display. It provides the same basic functions as ICM. The Bell
program, which costs $5 a month, is available in Toronto,
London,Ottawa/Hull, Montreal, Hamilton, and Quebec.
Mr. Smith says IIA's major focus is now on the huge U.S. and European
markets: "Eight months ago we stopped caring about anything Bell does or
doesn't do. We're on to far larger and more lucrative markets."
On May 12, InfoInterActive announced that the Cincinnati Bell Telephone
Co., the 12th largest American phone company, had launched Internet Call
Manager into full commercial service in Ohio, Kentucky and Indiana.
Yesterday IIA announced two new versions of its flagship product.
Internet Call Manager for Business will allow business Internet users to
monitor and handle incoming calls on one or more office telephone lines --
including those not related to their Internet service -- all from their computer
screen. The product eliminates the need for special "visual display" phones
or "caller ID" services from the telephone company.
Remote Call Control will let business people handle incoming office calls
from any location with Internet access, whether they are at home, travelling
or using a borrowed office.
The second version, High-Speed Internet Call Manager, offers
InfoInterActive's Internet call-waiting services to business and residential
phone customers with high-speed Internet access systems such as
corporate networks, ADSL and cable modems.
Internet Call Manager vs Internet Call Display
Internet Call Manager from InfoInterActive is a "stand-alone" program.
Once InfoInterActive has made the necessary arrangements with local
telephone companies to enable its features, a process which can take
several days, the service can be activated whenever and however the
customer is using the Internet.
By comparison, Bell Canada's Internet Call Display must be run within
recent versions of the Internet Explorer and Netscape Navigator browsers.
The assumption is that users will be using one of those products when they
are connected to the Internet, and most probably will.
However, users who close their browsers to run file transfer programs, play
games over the Internet or run mail and news packages will no longer be
notified of incoming calls, and the people making those calls will receive a
busy signal.
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Cheers,
Don |
