Telecom Canada has renamed itself Stentor Canadian Network Services as part of a wide-ranging reorganisation. The telecommunications administration, the Canadian regional telephone companies consortium – established in 1931 as the Trans-Canada Telephone System – has created two new units. One will develop products and services, the other will deal with regulatory issues. It will continue to manage the connections between the regional telephone networks, and determine how revenues from national services are divided among the telephone companies. The Stentor Resource Centre division is intended to make the alliance between the nine phone companies streamlined and effective. One of the changes is that regional companies lose their power of veto over national product and service decisions. It is hoped that this move will speed the rate at which new technologies are introduced. This division will be headed by Brian Hewat, previously vice-president of marketing at Bell Canada. Stentor Telecom Policy, the second division, will act as the lobbying arm of the carriers’ alliance. Jocelyne Cote-O’Hara, former vice-president of government relations at British Columbia Telephone, has been appointed president and chief executive of the division. This second arm is expected to benefit smaller companies since prior to the reorganisation, they did not have the clout to deal with regulators. The two new units will be incorporated as Federal companies, and the nine regional telephone companies will be shareholders. The reorganisation of Telecom Canada was welcomed by the Canadian Business Telecommunications Alliance, a 330-member national organisation which represents large users of telecommunications services. President George Horhota told Newsbytes that …on a preliminary basis we’re very supportive, in fact I’d say we’re strongly supportive and applaud the initiative… Commentators see the reorganisation as a recognition that increased competition is inevitable in the Canadian market and that the regional carriers must prepare for it. Horhota did express one reservation about the second Stentor division, Stentor Telecom Policy. If this group starts to focus on attempts at …maintaining the monopoly telephone structure through lobbying… he said, …that, we believe, is not in our interest or the country’s interest.
