The IT Nerd

First some housekeeping. Yesterday, I ran a story about the fact that Iristel head honcho Samer Bishay claimed that a telco named Primus was going into creditor protection, and that would help users of netTALK who have been without phone service since last Friday. I spent most of today trying to find out if this was true or not and the fact is, there is nothing that supports the claim that Bishay made yesterday. So unless someone comes to me with hard evidence that says otherwise, I’m filing this one under “busted.”

However, it seems that Mr. Bishay won’t stop Tweeting. Here’s his latest one:

Some good news expected soon for @netTALK customers. Hang in there.

— Samer Bishay (@SBishayIRIS) January 20, 2016

So, I’ll ask the question that 75,000 Canadians are likely asking. What does that mean? I haven’t got a clue. But because I am…. well…. no longer going to take his word on it, I called him on it via Twitter:

@SBishayIRIS @netTALK You said Primus was in creditor protection, but offered no proof. Today you tweet this. Why should we believe you now?

— The IT Nerd (@The_IT_Nerd) January 20, 2016

If he responds, I will let you know. But the fact is that Mr. Bishay isn’t exactly helping the situation with his ill advised Tweets. He may find that by working towards a solution he can be of greater help to the 75,000 people in Canada who have no phone service.

UPDATE: Readers have pointed me towards documentation that confirms what Bishay was saying about Primus being in creditor protection.

@The_IT_Nerd @SBishayIRIS @netTALK https://t.co/IYnJR8sB3j

— David G. Stevenson (@dgstevenson1) January 20, 2016

And:

@The_IT_Nerd about Primus' filing: https://t.co/b21IjMyVRn

— Mathieu Desmarais ツ (@matdesmarais) January 20, 2016

And even netTALK pointed this out to me:

@dgstevenson1 @The_IT_Nerd @SBishayIRIS @iristel Primus has been purchased by a large, global telecom conglomerate

— NT CONNECT (@ntconnect_) January 20, 2016

So… Let me answer this question:

@netTALK @The_IT_Nerd @SBishayIRIS @iristel Precisely what does that do for netTALK’s Canadian customers?

— David G. Stevenson (@dgstevenson1) January 20, 2016

Let me go back to what I said on this yesterday:

Primus is a Canadian telco that’s a couple of steps down the food chain from telcos like Rogers and Bell. They offer home and residential business phone and Internet services. But they are also a CLEC which stands for competitive local exchange carrier. In other words they can offer the service that Iristel offered to netTALK as I explained in this article. Specifically, connecting Canadian phone numbers to netTALK’s back end hardware. The word on the street is that netTALK was going to move all the Canadian numbers that they have to these guys and continue operations. Except that when they tried, Iristel wouldn’t release them. Now this Tweet implies that Primus has entered creditor protection. That would mean that netTALK would have nowhere to go and have one foot in the grave when it comes to their Canadian operations. It may also give Iristel leverage to get paid.

So we will see how this plays out given this event.

On a related note, I am man enough to say that Mr. Bishay was right on this specific issue. But his style of Tweeting doesn’t make it easy to take him seriously. Perhaps he might want to adjust that accordingly.

UPDATE #2: The Globe And Mail has more on the Primus situation.

This entry was posted on January 20, 2016 at 4:54 pm and is filed under Commentary with tags Iristel, netTALK. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.