Iristel blossoms from Montreal apartment to national carrier

Samer Bishay was working for the Canadian Space Agency in Saint-Hubert, Que. in the late 1990s when he stumbled across a magazine article about real-time communications. At the time, a long distance phone call from Bishay’s Montreal apartment to his family in Toronto cost around one dollar per minute. But, that story said, the internet would soon see those prices slashed. “I’ve always been a geek at heart with technology and dabbling around with stuff,” the founder of Iristel Inc. tells The Wire Report. Working out of his tiny apartment, Bishay tinkered with voice-over-internet equipment until he found a way to utilize it to produce a lower-cost way of linking telephone callers. Getting into the field wasn’t easy, he reports. “It’s always hard to kickstart a business from scratch,” he says. “It was a challenge to try and get a large brand, or any brand actually, to trust in what you’re doing.” But a spinoff of American telecom AT&T Inc. was impressed by the brash Canadian. If he could supply it with long distance service, the firm agreed to buy it. Internet technology made it possible. In 1999, Iristel was formed following the AT&T deal — its first big contract. At first it concentrated on the international market, operating by satellite in Africa and eastern Europe, where it was difficult to deploy fibre. The Canadian telecom was able to offer service at about one-third of the previous cost. But political instability in those continents made operations precarious. Bishay made the decision to move into his home territory. “Why am I bothering there if I can just build it here in Canada and start applying for my licence and actually bring that tech back to Canadian soil where I grew up?” Bishay wondered. In 2001, Iristel made its Canadian debut. This caused a change in attitude from its competition, he states. “Everybody loves you when you’re under the radar and not really playing or competing in any of their sandboxes,” he notes. “Because Iristel, even though it’s a Canadian company, was dabbling in international space, they didn’t see us as a threat whatsoever, any of the incumbents,” he believes. But when the company started going after the clientele of the big players, they bristled, he states. Iristel often files Part 1 applications with the CRTC attempting to smooth out relations with the incumbent local exchange carriers (ILECs). Bishay finds it shocking the number of times his competitive local exchange carrier (CLEC) has gone to the commission seeking to right alleged wrongs, and is surprised by the issues he states have gone unaddressed until Iristel points them out. It shouldn’t be up to a competitor to do all the investigatory work, Bishay maintains. The telecom is currently in a dispute with BCE Inc. subsidiary Northwestel over disconnection fees. That matter is still under consideration by the CRTC. A Northwestel spokesperson said in a statement to The Wire Report in August that it was acting in compliance with the CRTC’s June decision to tell Iristel to pay the outstanding amounts or come up with an alternative arrangement while it disconnected Iristel’s services. Iristel also had a fight over traffic stimulation with Rogers Communications Inc. It lost a case over call routing restrictions, in which it alleged Rogers gave itself undue preference. Iristel is the only competitive carrier operating in all 10 provinces and all three territories. “Nobody covers the national territory like we do, which is a great kind of success story for us and for Canada, to even have an independent be able to do that. But it comes with a lot of friction points,” Bishay says. Bishay wants to see the playing field levelled, so that geography does not play a disproportionate role in telephony services. The cost of service in Iqaluit should be the same as it is in Toronto, he asserts. “I think a level playing field there around the geography, and really look at it as a federal issue with national pride to solve it and not divide the country,” Bishay asserts. – Reporting by Paul Park at ppark@thewirereport.ca

Iristel blossoms from Montreal apartment to national carrier

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By Paul Park
| September 26, 2024

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Iristel blossoms from Montreal apartment to national carrier

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