Participants in a panel on business services at the recent Telecom Summit conference in Toronto talked about IP networks improving health care, expanding options for small business and reducing costs.
Eric Fletcher, senior vice-president of marketing at MTS Allstream Inc., noted his company’s announcement during the conference of IP trunking services, which allow direct IP connections from a customer’s IP PBX into the public switched telephone network.
The day before the panel, MCI Canada announced its own local IP trunking offering, complementing its existing long-distance offering. Robert Quance, MCI Canada’s general manager, was not being cautious about the future of IP trunking.
“At some point, everybody will buy it,” he told reporters at an MCI Canada data centre in Toronto.
David Fuller, vice-president of solutions development and marketing at Telus Business Solutions, said his company’s IP services are helping thoracic surgeons in British Columbia assess patients in remote communities.
Dave Dobbin, president of Toronto Hydro Telecom, said his customers want to make their employees mobile, put in place true disaster recovery plans, concentrate on their core businesses and reduce operating and capital costs. Toronto Hydro Telecom operates only within Toronto, taking advantage of rights of way that belong to parent company Toronto Hydro.