Vonage has struck an interesting private-label deal with Nations Sphere, which provides Internet access to Canada's Aboriginal communities. Nations Sphere will sell Vonage’s Internet telephony service under the MetHawk Telenet brand. When Nations Sphere launches high-speed service later this year, chairman Bill Montour says it will be able to offer First Nation consumers a "low-cost telephone alternative so they can stay in touch with friends and family in remote or far-away locations." Give Vonage credit for its imaginative marketing initiatives. The company has clearly realized it needs to move quickly before the cablecos and carriers get serious about Internet telephony. Going after market niches is a good way to jump-start growth.

According to a new Ipsos-Insight survey, the broadband market jumped 24% last year. The growth was highlighted a shift in the U.S. where close to six out of 10 Internet users now use a high-speed connection – a development that must have been helped by more aggressive pricing by DSL providers trying to wrestle market share from cablecos.
Ipsos also found less than a third of Internet users are using dial-up as the primary way to get online. That said, it is important to note dial-up is still big business with about three million customers in Canada. It means there is a big market for technology from Waterloo, Ont.-based Slipstream Technologies, which makes software that puts dial-up on steroids.
As far as the growing popularity of broadband, the real story is how new services and applications will be pumped down the pipe to residential and corporate customers. For more of my thoughts on big, fat pipes, check out a posting that I wrote a few days ago.

Billing itself as the "most aggressively priced" VOIP service provider, Comwave Telecom is expanding its service into 30 Canadian and 1,200 U.S. communities. It also introduced three new plans plans that start at $9.95 a month for no-frills service to $29.95 for unlimited calling in North America. As a smaller player trying to establish a market niche before the cablecos move into the market, Comwave's expansion and new plans are no surprise. The real question is whether Comwave can evolve from being anything more than a fringe player. Then again, the Internet telephony market's low barriers to entry should allow little players to survive if they can attract consumers with selling points such as low prices, features, and/or going after niche markets such as ethnic communities.