Bell Canada's decision to reluctantly offer naked DSL - high-speed broadband service without a local line - should give the Internet telephony market a huge boost in Canada. Many DSL users have shied away from Vonage and Primus because they would have to pay for high-speed access and two phones lines - the copper wire and the Internet telephony. Primus Canada president Ted Chislett believes he could have nearly doubled his subscriber base in 2004 if naked DSL had been available.
If you think about it, Bell should really enter into an alliance/joint venture with Vonage to get into the Internet telephony game. I mean, if Bell is willing to do a joint venture with Virgin in the fast-growing wireless market, why wouldn't it do something as creative in the emerging Internet telephony business?
Then again, I think Bell made a big strategic mistake by getting into bed with Richard Branson. Why let a arketing-savvy wolf like Virgin into the game when there was stlll plenty of easy pickings to be had. It would be quite another story if wireless penetration in Canada was 60%+, but we're talking about a market with 45% penetration. Maybe Bell believed if it didn't do a deal with Virgin, Microcell, Rogers or Telus would step up to the plate.