Vonage President No Stranger

Vonage President No Stranger In The West: U Of A Grad Worked Northern Alberta Rigs Before Heading For Calgary

July 27, 2004

By Paul Marck

EDMONTON - The president of Canada's newest telephone company has links to both Edmonton and Calgary.

Bill Rainey, newly hired president of Vonage Canada, obtained his undergraduate degree at University of Alberta and once lived in Calgary, where he met his wife and had two children.

Rainey, a former executive with Groupe Telecom, Telus and Royal Trust, has a particular affinity for northern Alberta.

"There's probably not a small town in northern Alberta, especially right around the Edmonton core, that I don't know intimately, having worked on drilling rigs to be able to pay for university," said Rainey, who now resides in Oakville, Ont. "That area is very familiar to me and I have a big warm spot in my heart for it."

Now, Rainey has the challenge of building Vonage Canada from scratch. The new telephony entrant uses Voice Over Internet Protocol (VoIP) technology instead of copper wire to deliver service targeted at residential and small and medium-sized business clients.

It is a largely unregulated competitor to incumbent phone companies. The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission has indicated new competitors will not be shackled with the restrictions on existing companies, but the matter remains under review.

Incumbents like Telus and Bell are planning Voip strategies as well, but want all companies operating under the same rules.

Vonage is one of the fastest-growing telephone companies in the U.S., with 215,000 customers since launching last year. Monthly packages, which include long distance and the ability to carry the same area code anywhere in the country, start at $19.99 a month.

Rainey said he realizes Vonage Canada clearly has its work cut out in challenging both incumbents and other service resellers for customer loyalty.

"To hit the ground running is very, very important. It's a competitive industry.

"We've got a wonderful offering and we really want to move forward as quickly as we can," Rainey said in an interview.

Considerable technological advances have been made with Voip technology in the last couple of years, particularly with hardware, Rainey said. While custom equipment is required, the end result for users is a regular telephone that carries voice traffic just as they are accustomed to.

Rainey said he expects Vonage Canada's success to imitate that of its U.S. parent.

While big, existing phone companies are looking to introduce new products and service to the marketplace, Vonage knows where its strengths lie. Vonage in the U.S. has more than half of the quickly growing broadband voice communications business.

"This is our core business. This is what we do and we do it very well."

Vonage Canada expects to have a formal rollout of service across Canada by autumn.

As the company's first employee, Rainey said he expects to build a team of 20 to 30 staff before year's end to market and service customers. The company's office will be headquartered somewhere in Greater Toronto.

Future growth could dictate expansion in other Canadian cities, Rainey said.

The American parent company is adding customers at the rate of 20,000 a month and expects 400,000 across North America by year's end.