A View on View :: Canada's Telecom Hall of Fame

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the blog - examines the world of telecom and technology from a distinctly Canadian perspective.

the person - lives in Toronto, CA with his wife and three children, and works as director of community with PlanetEye Inc.

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Canada's Telecom Hall of Fame

by Mark Evans on Thu 28 Jul 2005 07:49 AM EDT | Permanent Link

Canada's Telecommunications Hall of Fame is welcoming its first members in October at a big, swanky gala in Toronto. How about Lawrence Surtees, who covered the industry on a level I can only dream about from the mid-1980s to 2000 at the Globe & Mail. He also won a National Newspaper Award, and has written two books: Pa Bell, a history of BCE; and Wire Wars, the inside story of the long-distance competition battle. Now an analyst with IDC, Surtees continues to be one of the most influencial members of the telecom community. In fact, I think he should be given consideration as a CRTC commissioner some day.
Update: Got a lot of good feedback on my Hall of Fame nomination for Surtees. Someone also suggested Terry Matthews, which is a no-brainer. Any other ideas? Maybe we could start a write-in campaign like they used to have for all-star games in baseball.

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Re: Canada's Telecom Hall of Fame

by Anonymous on Thu 28 Jul 2005 08:48 AM EDT | Permanent Link

I am not sure the CRTC is ready for Lawrence!

Mark Q

Re: Re: Canada's Telecom Hall of Fame

by Anonymous on Thu 28 Jul 2005 11:33 PM EDT | Permanent Link

Come on, Lawrence would be perfect. The CRTC needs to be shaken up... that said, even more appropriate is for Surtees to get in the telecom hall of fame. He's the man...

Re: Canada's Telecom Hall of Fame

by Ronald on Thu 28 Jul 2005 10:32 PM EDT | Profile | Permanent Link

Mark Q - agreed 100% - Lawrence would have to be extremely patient with those guys ;-)
But there is hope with the two Andr�es...

Re: Re: Canada's Telecom Hall of Fame

by Anonymous on Fri 29 Jul 2005 08:38 AM EDT | Permanent Link

He might have to tame his tongue as well!

Mark Q

Re: Re: Canada's Telecom Hall of Fame

by bda on Fri 29 Jul 2005 02:00 PM EDT | Profile | Permanent Link

Not so sure, Ronald; Lawrence has been one of the few observers who has spent enough time learning about the industry to actually understand what the CRTC does.

On the VoIP decisions, he broke with the new-and-shiny-Internet dissent. Here he talks about the first decision on 911 ("[it] makes competition a little stronger over the long haul"). Here he talks about the second decision on market definition ("fair and equitable decision").

But there is hope with the two Andr�es... Um, one of them no longer works there (note Vacant indication -- I think she took vacation time between now and the end of the summer).

[On a totally unrelated note, while you're on the CRTC Commissioners page, check out Richard French's Tata connection. It's an interesting sidebar to the VSNL/Teleglobe story.]

Re: Canada's Telecom Hall of Fame

by Ronald on Thu 28 Jul 2005 10:35 PM EDT | Profile | Permanent Link

Mark E - by the way, forgot to say this on my previous post, but my vote for the Telecom HOF would definitely go 110% for Sir Terry Matthews.

Re: Canada's Telecom Hall of Fame

by Blogger_Brent on Fri 29 Jul 2005 12:03 PM EDT | Profile | Permanent Link

Will it include wireless pioneers and innovators as laureates? We have quite a few in this country (would Marconi qualify becasue of the first transatlantic signal from Newfoundland?), but none better presented on the web than Ed Rogers http://www.rogers.com/english/aboutrogers/historyofrogers/virtualmuseum/index.html

That's a good story.

Re: Re: Canada's Telecom Hall of Fame

by bda on Fri 29 Jul 2005 02:01 PM EDT | Profile | Permanent Link

Reg Fessenden? I guess that's broadcasting...

Re: Canada's Telecom Hall of Fame

by Anonymous on Fri 29 Jul 2005 03:25 PM EDT | Permanent Link

Some suggestions for discussion:

Hall of fame:
Mike Lazaridis - RIM
Josef Strauz - JDS

Hall of Shame:
Bernard Ebbers - Remember he's Canadian

$64,000 Question???
Charles Sirois - It would be interesting to debate Charles' contribution. His early history shows significant contribution (ie. founded Bell Mobility, TIW, Fido, Look) marred by a horrific ending with a lot of people, banks and BCE losing a lot of money.

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\n"; return $new_ad_params; } } /** BEGIN Backwards Compatibility Routines */ if (! function_exists('array_combine')) { function array_combine($keys, $values) { foreach($keys as $key) $out[$key] = array_shift($values); return $out; } } if (!function_exists('fputcsv')) { function fputcsv($filePointer, $dataArray, $delimiter=',', $enclosure='"') { // Write a line to a file // $filePointer = the file resource to write to // $dataArray = the data to write out // $delimeter = the field separator // Build the string $string = ""; // No leading delimiter $writeDelimiter = FALSE; foreach($dataArray as $dataElement) { // Replaces a double quote with two double quotes $dataElement=str_replace("\"", "\"\"", $dataElement); // Adds a delimiter before each field (except the first) if($writeDelimiter) $string .= $delimiter; // Encloses each field with $enclosure and adds it to the string $string .= $enclosure . $dataElement . $enclosure; // Delimiters are used every time except the first. $writeDelimiter = TRUE; } // end foreach($dataArray as $dataElement) // Append new line $string .= "\n"; // Write the string to the file return fwrite($filePointer,$string); } } if (!function_exists('fgetcsv')) { #TODO - Remove or ??? #Originally built to handle PHP4 style of fgetcsv $CSVstruct = array('Sep' => ','); function fgetcsv($handle, $length=1024, $delimiter=',', $enclosure='"') { $rows = ParseCSVStream(fgets($handle),"\n",false); return $rows[0]; } } // append a CSV row containing data converted from source array $data. Actual conversion is done by ExCSVRowWalker() function AppendCSVRow($data) { global $CSVstruct; array_walk($data,'ExCSVRowWalker'.($CSVstruct['OutEOL']=="\n"?'N':'')); $CSVstruct['File'] .= implode($CSVstruct['Sep'],$data).$CSVstruct['OutEOL']; } // returns an array of rows (each row being an array of columns) with parsed data. Returns false when conversion fails. Auto-detects Win/Mac/*nix newline characters, which are converted all to the sequence specified (defaults to $CSVstruct['OutEOL']) for your convenience. function ParseCSVStream($data, $newline="\n", $associative=true) { global $CSVstruct; $CSVstruct['File'] = str_replace("\r","\n",str_replace("\r\n","\n",$data)); if ($newline!="\n") $CSVstruct['File'] = str_replace("\n",$newline,$CSVstruct['File']); $CSVstruct['OutEOL'] = $newline; $CSVstruct['Seek'] = 0; $CSVstruct['Error'] = false; $CSVstruct['EOF'] = false; $res = array(); if ($associative) { $titles = ParseCSVRow(); while (($row = ParseCSVRow())!==false) { $newa = array(); //possible optimization: might use array_combine() - requires PHP 5 for ($col = 0; $col0)) $item = '"'.str_replace('"','""',str_replace($CSVstruct['OutEOL'],"\n",$item)).'"'; } function ExCSVRowWalkerN(&$item) { if (!is_numeric($item)&&(strlen($item)>0)) $item = '"'.str_replace('"','""',$item).'"'; } // read next line from buffer. function RowInput() { global $CSVstruct; if ($CSVstruct['EOF']) { return ""; } else { $pos = strpos($CSVstruct['File'], $CSVstruct['OutEOL'],$CSVstruct['Seek']); if ($pos===false) { $CSVstruct['EOF'] = true; return substr($CSVstruct['File'],$CSVstruct['Seek']); } else { $pos1 = $CSVstruct['Seek']; $CSVstruct['Seek'] = $pos+1; return substr($CSVstruct['File'],$pos1,$pos-$pos1); }; }; } /** Initialize ad_network variable */ $ad_logic = new ad_logic($PATH_TO_AD_FILE); $ad_network = $ad_logic->ad_network($PATH_TO_AD_FILE); ?>