Not to scare anyone withthe spectre of George Orwell's 1984 but you have to wonder about the "advances" of technology sometimes. Bell Canada is introducing a new service called "Seek & Find" that the wireless carrier says offers parents "peace of mind" by giving them the ability to determine their children's location 24/7 using their mobile phone and the Internet. "Seek & Find is a tool to help parents tackle the challenges faced by many of today's busy families," said Bell Mobility president Alek Krstajic, apparently referring to the age-old challenge of knowing the exact location of your children at all times. Some of Seek & Find's features include the ability to:
- view in real time the location of family members on a map;
- receive location reports at specific intervals; and
- to set up regular location alerts that synch with daily routines.
I wonder if any creative Bell Mobility sales agents will market "Seek & Find" as a way to catch cheating husbands and wives? Using Seek & Find and Google Maps, I'm sure a spouse could create a program that would transmit an alarm if their partner was located in a motel or hotel somewhere. The possibilities are endless!

Not that this should surprise anyone but a new Ipsos Reid study suggests Canadians are spending more time on the Internet and less time listening to the radio. According to the research firm, Canadians surf an average of 12.7 hours a week, a 46% rise from 2002, while the time devoted to the radio has dropped to 11 hours from 16 hours. While TV still rules the roost at 14.3 hours a week, the gap between the boob-tube and the Internet has shrunk to 1.6 hours, compared with 4.3 hours three years ago. For advertisers, all this data means they should seriously explore moving some budget to the Web from traditional froms of media, particularly if they want to court younger consumers. As to why Internet usage is growing in Canada, it could be the high penetration rates of high-speed Internet access. Many people may also be turning to the the Web for streaming audio rather than listening to the ultra-programmed world of traditional radio. As for TV, who knows. Maybe's it's the whole reality-TV craze or the fact it's easier to eat a bag of chips or down a carton of ice cream while lounging on the couch.

In-Stat expects the home networking equipment market to more than double to $20-billion by 2009 from $9-billion in 2004, driven by the growing interest among consumers in connecting digital audio and video files to stereos, TVs and other entertainment equipment. In 2004, the number of homes with a network jumped to 37 million from 24 million in 2003 as connectivity speeds increased and prices dropped. For equipment makers such as Netgear, Cisco (Linksys) and D-Link, there are a couple ways to read In-Stat's research. One, it's time to break out the champagne because the market is about to explode. Or two, there are tough times ahead because the focus will be on controlling costs to deal with intense competition. Speaking of Netgear, I've heard great things about its Range Max Wireless Router.

Looks like investors are back on the Nortel Networks bandwagon as the stock climbed 13% yesterday after the company posted better-than-expected second-quarter results. Still, a rule of thumb is using Nortel shares as a proxy for the company's prospects is a dangerous game. Investors thought Nortel was going to dominate the telecom equipment market when its stock hit a high of $124.50 in July 2000, and they expected it to file for bankruptcy protection when the stock bottomed out at 67 cents in 2003. Of course, niether scenario materialized. What Nortel demonstrated more than anything yesterday was things have hopefully returned to normal, and there will not be many unexpected surprises going forward. Mind you, "normal" in the equipment business is a difficult concept to pin down given the growing competition from low-cost suppliers in China, as well as the usual global suspects - Alcatel, Cisco, Lucent, et al. For all the progress Nortel has made in righting itself financially over the past year, there are still significant challenges ahead. These include a further reduction in costs, which may include more job cuts as its attempts to lower operating expenses to 30% of revenue by next year. The company also needs to make a few strategic moves/deals to position itself in high-growth areas such as access and routers. It would also be nice for CEO Bill Owens to lay out a strategic vision other than the focus on the U.S. government, security and services.
Ronald Gruia provides some good insight into Nortel's second-quarter results. He points out, for example, that while Nortel's enterprise unit enjoyed strong growth, rivals such as Cisco, Avaya and Mitel had saw healthy sales.