Despite Bell's coyness about its Internet telephony plans - which were only
disclosed with its chief marketing domo Alek Krstajic spilled the beans to
the Financial Post last month - the carrier is already conducting consumer
trials of the technology. Perhaps buoyed by a few holiday party drinks, a
Bell employee gushed the service is "great". This should scare the heck out
of Vonage, et al - particularly if the CRTC decides to let Bell and other
incumbent carriers compete on a level playing field when it comes to
Internet telephony.

The idea of video phones has been around for years but it has never caught on - probably because people like the relative anonymity and the ability to continue to multi-task while they talk. This is not proving to be a deterrent to Vonage, which is apparently preparing to launch a videophone over its Internet telephony service. Vonage, which has signed up more than 300,000 customers, has signed a deal with Viseon to market a new product called the VisiFone II. Frankly, this strikes me as more of a publicity campaign by the PR-savvy folks at Vonage than a viable business opportunity. It's one thing for people to adopt Internet telephony - which is happening at slower pace than most media coverage would suggest - but quite another to convince people to migrate to Internet telephony and use a video-phone.

Rogers Communications plans to enter the Internet telephony business next July -- a move that should jump start the much-hyped but slow-growing market in Canada.
Ted Rogers, Rogers' president and CEO, told a CSFB conference yesterday a full suite of services will be rolled out.
"It will be a primary ...   more »