If you thought Nortel's accounting woes were over with the filing of its 10-K to the SEC earlier this week, think again. Buried within the filing is thatt Nortel's audit committee will be conducting an internal investigation into how the company recognized revenue in the late-1990s during the go-go days of the telecom boom. Nortel will be advised by Washington, D.C.-based Wilmer Cutling Pickering, which prepared the independent review that alleges ex-Nortel CEO Frank Dunn and his financial team cooked the books in 2002 and 2003.
If you're John Roth, who has been trying to get by on the $135-million he "earned" after exercising stock options in 2000, it's probably time to call your lawyer. Here's the full story in the Financial Post.

Yak seems have to have changed its pricing plans - based on what's now on
their Web site. They're offering two low-cost services. For $12.99, you get
500 minutes of LD in North America, low-cost LD to international
destinations and a few features such as caller ID. For $18.99, you get a
slew of free features such as caller ID, voice mail and unified messaging,
as well as the same LD plan as the $12.99 package. Yak is clear it's going
after the secondary line market for people who want to make inexpensive
international LD calls. This is a small niche of the market but it reflects
Yak's traditional approach to the market where it has 800,000 dial-around LD
customers.

It looks like Shaw Communications will be the first Canadian cableco to launch an Internet telephony service using VOIP-based technology. At the company's AGM yesterday, CEO Jim Shaw said customers in Edmonton will be offered the service within a few weeks. The service will cost about $60 a month and include 1000 minutes of long-distance and four calling features - similar to what Mr. Shaw said a year ago. The company believes it can win 20% of the telephony market within the next four to five years. It expects to spend $105-million in capital for the first 200,000 customers, and $200-million to $250-million over five years.
Like Comcast earlier this week, Shaw is adopting a premium price approach to Internet telephony. At $60, I have serious doubts they will be able to achieve the market share gains management has targeted. Using traditional service now, even if you use plenty of LD and lots of features, $60 represents a hefty monthly bill. Does it really make sense to switch over to a cableco if the price difference is minimal?