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'The monopoly is over' Local phone competition hits Yellowknife in the form of Irisitel
Lyndsay Herman
As of Dec. 17, Iristel launched local phone services in Yellowknife, Whitehorse, and Inuvik through a Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) network. Iristel is now the sole competitor to NorthwesTel for telephone services after the Canadian Radio-television Telecommunications Commissions ruling which required NorthwesTel to open its network to competition effective May 1. Maged Bishara, vice-president operations of Iristel and its sister company, ICE Wireless, said the new service will provide advanced telephone system options for a fraction of what Northerners are currently paying. "What we're going to do ... is provide services for what they should be valued at," he said. "That's the main drawback of a monopoly and protectionist environment. Basically, and honestly speaking, that is what we're going to do because the monopoly is over." The company will provide services in a residential or corporate capacity as well as provide support for telephone service resellers. Iristel owns the infrastructure required for its Voice over Internet Protocol and so does not resell services bought from another company, such as NorthwesTel, as has been the case for some Internet competitors in the NWT. Bishara said Yellowknife residents can also look forward to services which have been standard to southern Canada but have not been available here. An example would be the ability to transfer a call from a land line to a cellphone without interruption or have a Yellowknife number which reaches a main line in Montreal or a cellphone if the employee is out of the office. "You can have employees on site and off site," he said. "Local, long-distance and overseas without any long-distance charges involved." While the system is still a telephone line, it's new technology that makes these services available, he said. "The main issue in Yellowknife or anywhere up North is you guys are using 1970 or 1980 telephone systems," said Bishara. "We're in the second decade of 2000 right now." NorthwesTel declined to comment on any plans to adjust rates or services provided as a result of Iristel's entrance into the Northern telephone market due to competitive reasons. However, Emily Younker, spokesperson for NorthwesTel, stated in an email to Yellowknifer that NorthwesTel believes competition brings opportunities and "it is up to NorthwesTel to capitalize on those opportunities." SSI Micro, which offers Internet service in competition with NorthwesTel, has expressed an interest in entering the telephone service market.
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