The debate continues to swirl around Toronto Hydro’s Tuesday, March 7 announcement. One of the most prominent and obvious elements of the discussion revolves around how Toronto Hydo Telecom’s plan will change the consumer/enterprise broadband market. In an article by Mark Evans, the telco’s weigh in with their predictable opposition:

Mike Lee, chief strategy officer with Rogers Communications Inc., said he cannot understand why Toronto Hydro, which is owned by the cash-strapped city of Toronto, wants to enter the Internet access business, because it can be expensive to operate and maintain.

We see the other side of the argument in an ITWorldCanada article, where Mark Els emphasizes, “the proposed network poses an obvious and very serious threat to traditional telcos such as Bell, Telus and Rogers because the service will be much more than consumer-grade.”

Moreover, the company is not new to offering secure, enterprise-class Internet connectivity. Among its customers are four of Canada’s biggest banks, who use Toronto Hydro Telecom’s Gigabit Ethernet fibre optic network to transfer data between their Toronto sites.

Lawrence Surtees, vice-president and principal analyst, communications research at IDC Canada Ltd. is also quoted in Els’ article. He is supportive of the Toronto Hydro’s entry into the market, and assesses, “ubiquitous coverage combined with high bandwidth makes Toronto Hydro Telecom’s offering a strong, viable alternative to the cellular carriers.”

Surtees also muses, “It starts to make sense why incumbent phone companies such as Verizon in San Francisco and SBC in Philadelphia have their knickers in a knot about comparable muni-services down there; and why I think Bell, Telus, Rogers are going to be possibly freaking out over this.”

Surtees’ overview of the Toronto Hydro Plan, “Toronto Hydro Lights Up GTA with WiFi Blanket” is also worth checking out. Among other things, it lists Canadian municipalities already offering WiFi access services. They are: Fredericton, Calgary, Whistler/Kamloops, Hamilton, Sault Saint Marie, and Ottawa.