Date: October 19, 2009
Source: IT World Canada, Greg Meckbach
Contact: David Eisenstadt, The Communications Group Inc.; Andrea Martin, Atria Networks LP
(Markham, ON)
Founded through a merger of municipal hydro utilities’ fibre providers, Atria now provides a DWDM backbone and plans to launch voice service in 2010.
Atria Networks LP, which provides private wide-area networking service in Ontario, plans to add telephone service to its offerings next year.
“We are actively looking into voice services, targeting the middle of next year for full launch, with controlled launches this year,” said Michael Stephens, vice-president of marketing for the Markham, Ont.-based vendor.
Atria operates a 4,500 km of fibre optic network in Ontario, mainly along hydro rights of way. It was founded in 2005 by the merger of the telecommunications divisions of two municipal electrical utilities – FibreTech Wired of Waterloo Region and FibreWired of Guelph.
The firm announced in May it would offer voice and last week, John Piercy, Atria’s chief executive officer, said Atria roll out service city by city starting the second quarter of 2010.
“Every one of our customers is a potential (voice) customer, because everyone who’s got data has got voice,” he said.
Atria has yet to announce price plans, but Iain Grant, managing director of Montreal-based SeaBoard Group, said the voice service will help Atria only if it offers it at a price that competes with Bell.
“It makes sense for them to have a more complete portfolio” of services, Grant said, because sales staff could tell prospective customers they can provide both voice and data service.
Piercy said Atria plans to offer to manage private branch exchanges and eventually offer services similar to Centrex.
“The world is moving away from the traditional PBX,” he said. “They don’t want to manage them. They want someone else managing them.”
Businesses are even more concerned about PBX support now the Nortel is operating under bankruptcy protection, Piercy said. Although Avaya plans to take over Nortel’s PBX line, Avaya has not announced specific product support plans.
In order to offer voice service, Atria must apply to the federal government to become a competitive local exchange carrier (CLEC). Stephens said a “big part of the timeline” in setting up voice service is in the regulatory process, and not so much the technology.
View the original article here: http://www.itworldcanada.com/news/atria-to-launch-phone-service-in-2010/139026
ABOUT ATRIA NETWORKS (www.atrianetworks.com)
Atria Networks is Ontario’s premier, locally-dedicated business Internet and data services provider. With one of the most extensive fibre-optic networks in Ontario, Atria can scale rapidly to meet any bandwidth requirement. Business continuity services include offsite data storage and back-up, email and web security, and Internet redundancy for protection against downtime losses in revenue and productivity. Customers rely on Atria for personalized customer service, technical support and the capacity and data integrity of our fibre-optic network. Active in the community, Atria Networks provides free Wi-Fi Internet in public libraries and invests in education and literacy.
For More Information Contact:
David Eisenstadt
The Communications Group Inc.
Phone Number: 416-696-9900 ext 36
Email: deisenstadt@tcgpr.com
Andrea Martin
Atria Networks LP
Phone Number: 519-593-3005
Email: amartin@atrianetworks.com
