The Ottawa Citizen's James Bagnell has a great story into why Nortel COO Garry Daichendt abruptly left last month after only three months at the helm. Apparently, Daichendt went into a board meeting with CTO Gary Kunis to discuss their strategic plan. Before he started, Daichendt said he and his wife had asked God for guidance. God's message, Daichendt disclosed, was he should replace Bill Owens as CEO, and CFO Peter Currie, who was seen as Owens' successor before Daichendt was hired, should leave. If this is an accurate depiction of what happened, it's an incredible, mystifying story. It also explains why Owens danced around the topic during last week's AGM when he emphasized on several occasions that Daichendt resigned because of different management styles rather than strategic differences. Still, the enduring question is why the board and Owens didn't realize something like this situation had the potential to happen when they were interviewing Daichendt and doing their due diligence. From all accounts, Daichendt is well-respected but he had been out of the telecom industry for five years so it wasn't like he wanted to come back to just be #2. Perhaps Nortel had good intentions and were so giddy about securing Daichendt's services, they overlooked any weaknesses. In any event, Bagnell's story is a must read for anyone interested in Nortel.

Prism Venture Partners, which recently raised $250-million for a new fund, is investing $4-million with TD Capital Ventures in Everypoint, which wireless "info-tainment" applications for carriers. The Boston-based company will launch a soccer application next month in Germany and the U.K. that will provide live content such as scores, news and other information. The financing will be used to hire more people in Europe and develop more sports applications. The deal is just the latest in a flurry of telecom financings completed in recent months. TelcoTrash has a list of some of the more noteworthy deals.
The money raised by Everypoint is more evidence that the focus on ARPU among wireless carriers is alive and well. With penetration rates in Europe well above 90%, most of the revenue growth will come from fee-based services. In North America, the market still has room for subscriber growth with the U.S. at 65% penetration and Canada at 50%. The National Post had a story in Monday's paper about how Loblaw, Canada's leading grocery chain, plans to move into the wireless market through an MVNO deal with Bell Mobility.

...And I'm not the only one according to RBC Capital Markets analyst Mark Sue, who estimates Motorola sold 3.5 million Razrs in the second quarter. The Razr's success has given Motorola much-need cache in the wireless world - a status once controlled by Nokia. The Street's Scott Moritz said Motorola aims to build on the Razr's buzz with several new products. These include Slvr, a non-folding version of Razr with video and music features; the the Pebl; and a new Razr that features e-mail, Windows Mobile and a keyboard. Then, there is the iTunes-equiped Rokr. In Canada, Rogers in the ony carrier to offer the Razr.

With Rogers finally entering the telephone market, I thought it would be a good time to offer a snapshot of pricing details for the major VOIP service providers. I'll start by using Bell Canada's traditional local telephone service as a pricing benchmark:
- Bell charges $20 to $28 a month for basic local service. For call-answer, call-display and call-waiting, the total cost rises to $41 to $49, not including LD. A six-feature package is $24.95.

Cablecos (prices vary depending on bundle discounts)
- Rogers: $29.95 (one feature) to $41.95 (six features); 15% discount if you have other Rogers services
- Shaw: $55 a month (multi-features, unlimited North American LD)
- Cogeco: $39.99 to $44.99 a month (multi-features; unlimited North American LD)
- Videotron: $22.95 to $28.95 (multi-features, no LD); $2.95 for 100 minutes of North American LD

Others
- Vonage: $34.99 (multi-features and province-wide LD); $39.99 (multi-features, North American LD)
- Primus: $19.95 (multi-features, no LD); $29.95 (multi-features; unlimited North American LD)
- AOL Canada: $19.95 (multi-features, 60 minutes of LD); $39.95 (multi-features, 1000 minutes North American LD)
- Bell Digital Voice: $45 (multi-features, unlimited North American LD); $38 (multi-features, Can. LD 5¢ /minute, U.S. LD 7¢ );
- BabyTel: $29.95 (multi-features, unlimited North American LD)
- Sprint Canada: $19.95 ($4 for the first calling feature, $2 for each additonal calling feature; no LD)
- SpectraVoice: $14.95 to $39.95 (premium plans includes unlimited North American LD)

So what's the best deal in Canada for VOIP? Probably Primus' TalkBroadBand plan at $29.95 a month given it's feature-rich and you can purchase other services from Primus such as high-speed Internet access. A step up in the mobile VOIP market is Vonage at $34.99 to $39.99 a month. As far as the cablecos, Videotron is stll far and away the pricing leader as it aggressively drives to take market share from Bell in Quebec. The other cablecos have made life much easier for ILEC rivals with prices that analysts call "disciplined" and I'd describe as pragmatic or conservative.