The National Post in Canada has a story about the overall impact of VoIP in Canada. One point they make is that a research company claims VoIP has 15,000 users in Canada. Another is the fear of teh rise of the cable companies as telcos in Canada.
Canada is a great market to conduct trials in. The proximity to the USA, the same English language (well sort of) and highly populated metropolitan areas makes Canada such a natural for US based companies to strike partnerships and do real world trials.
At the same time, Canada, especially around Vancouver and Toronto are very tech savvy markets, often overlooked due to the USA’s adoration with Silicon Valley.
So the next company that wants to go looking for a place to try out their technology should look North and remember that Bell Canada, which spun off Nortel, the same way AT&T spun off Lucent, is really a great proving ground type partner.