Mitel furious over Bell/Cisco bid

Mitel will decide, in the next couple of weeks, whether or not to sue the city of Ottawa over a telephone procurement process, reports Ottawa Citizen.

Mitel CEO, Don Smith, says he was troubled with council's decision to carry on with a procurement process for $6 million to $7 million worth of VOIP equipment, claiming the bidding process was unfair.

The contract bid was won jointly by Bell and Cisco. Smith believes that by allowing Cisco to upgrade the city's computer system to handle VOIP, the city gave Cisco the inside track for the telephone technology contract.

Alvarion and MLL Telecom claim the UK is ready for widespread roll-outs of mobile WiMax following a successful network trial in Maidstone, of mobile data, VOIP and video streaming, says FierceBroadbandWireless.

The pilot network was deployed for the Mobile WiMax Acceleration Group, a consortium of companies that joined together to create an ecosystem for mobile WiMax.

Eddie Minshull, CEO of MLL Telecom, points out: "We have been proactively managing the network on a 24/7 basis and found it to be extremely stable. With the right sort of planning and design expertise, WiMax is now ready for mainstream use.”

Trials in fibre optic networks being held in north London and Cardiff could help improve the efficiency of VOIP, according to Telappliant.

Selected homes in the UK are receiving high-speed broadband connections from Internet service provider BT, while the company is expected to reveal more about fibre-to-the-cabinet telephone exchanges to make the technology more widely available.

The faster speeds are to be provided through BT's 21st Century Network and through Internet service providers such as Sky and O2.