The cable sector's spin has been that Bell wants to use VoIP as what the Competition Act calls a "fighting brand" -- a cream-skimming mechanism to ensure they don't lose customers to entrants. Economically that makes sense; telephony is a network business, and you don't want to enter it unless you think you're going to hit critical mass. So the argument becomes a simple one: VoIP is no good to Bell unless it's just a way to offer the same old service at a ridiculously low price, forestalling market entry. One can agree or disagree, of course. But it's another possible explanation that does fit the ILECs' behaviour. (In the interim, it's also become a showpiece in the ongoing Mother of Regulatory Battles the ILECs seem to have decided to engage in on many, many fronts. They have been deploying cannons for every mosquito, and it's getting pretty epic. Ramming the Telecom Review Panel through Liberal Party connections was a nice touch, and you have to admire parachuting Bell's head lawyer into the Commissioner of Competition job. The Competition Bureau continues, not coincidentally, to covet the CRTC's job. Now it's even using the local deregulatory hearings to run its own parallel process by demanding all intervenors file with the Competition Bureau, too (zipreally going on: is this about a major behind-the-scenes foreign merger? One thing seems relatively clear: this is not about selling VoIP services. At least not the TDM-clone "Digital Voice" ones that Bell has rolled out to Sherbrooke.)