For over 25 years Lis and Ian Angus have championed the interests of public and private sector telecommunications users: As consultants working with large and small organizations to assist them in acquiring, implementing and managing telecommunications systems and services; As writers and educators, teaching a generation of telecommunications and network managers to understand and take advantage of fast-changing technology and new business opportunities; As advocates convincing policy-makers to make the benefits of advanced telecommunications accessible to business and consumers everywhere in Canada.

We all know that famous sentence uttered March 12, 1876 by Alexander Graham Bell to his assistant Thomas Watson that launched the telephone industry. But how did Bell get to that stage of his invention? What events in his life led to this moment when he would conduct the first-ever telephone call?

Blast off, one-two! With these words John Chapman helped launch Canada's entry into space, quite literally, with the Alouette 1 Satellite. What is so fascinating about Chapman's vision for Canada's entry into a space program was its reason: telecommunications.

Regulation. Monopoly. Competition. Words associated with economists and lawyers. So how did an industrial engineer from the Maritimes end up in the middle of a seismic shift in industry structure as Canada's telecommunications watchdog? Although born in Montreal, David Colville comes from Maritime stock. His family is solidly Nova Scotian and he was raised in and around Halifax.

Francis Dagger was born in Liverpool, England, in 1865, he began work in the telephone field at the age of 16. By his early 20s he had the responsibility of purchasing, estimating and engineering for the Western Counties and South Wales Telephone Company, soon becoming the company's inspector and superintendent of equipment and maintenance.

Every time a radio is turned on, anywhere in the world, the legacy of Edward Samuel Rogers continues to be realized. From the 1920s, "Ted" Rogers, Sr. envisioned radio as an electric pipeline reaching homes to entertain, inform and educate, and it continues to do so to this day. He stands prominent as an inventor and pioneer on the global telecommunications landscape.

On Christmas Eve, December 24, 1906, the soft sounds of Handle's Largo resonated through the air. Listeners then heard a single violin playing Oh Holy Night, followed by a slightly out-of-tune voice singing its main verse. A deep-voiced male then read from the Bible and wished the audience a Merry Christmas. This was the first-ever radio broadcast, engineered and hosted by wireless sound pioneer, Canadian-born Reginald Fessenden.

"What does it do?" the reporter asked. "Well," the soldier replied, "you can walk with it while you talk with it." This straight forward response from a solider to a reporter's question in wartime 1941 led to the creation of a term known the world over – the walkie-talkie. Few know that it was a Canadian, Donald Lewes Hings, who pioneered the invention and who so greatly aided the allies in WWII as a result. It's an interesting story, right out of the spy novels and the B.C. hinterlands.

Passion. Mentor. In researching Professor Hudson Janisch one is continually confronted with these two small words. But small is not a word that sits comfortably beside Professor Janisch, a gentle giant of a man, who left his mark on Canadian Telecommunications law and regulation over his distinguished career. His impact on a generation of students is as large as it is impressive. How then did Hudson Janisch develop such passion for telecommunications? Why does practically anyone who speaks of him refer to Professor Hudson as a mentor?

The 2010 Ryder Cup is taking place at The Celtic Manor Resort in Wales. Around the globe millions will watch the prestigious sporting event on television, and millions more will follow the action via broadband Internet communication. That the event is taking place in the South Wales Valley is a direct result of success within the telecommunications industry. How so? Celtic Manor is the birthplace of the mercurial and hugely successful telecommunications entrepreneur, Sir Terence Matthews. And Sir Terry loves his golf.

What makes a mentor, a leader, and a passionate personality who people want to emulate? It's never an easy question to answer, but once in a while a living example makes the understanding easier. In the practice of law, especially telecommunications regulatory law, there is Ernest E. Saunders (though anyone who knew him simply called him 'Ernie').

Charles Fleetford Sise was appointed in 1880 as special agent in Canada of the National Bell Telephone Co of Boston, Mass, and promptly organized its Canadian subsidiary: The Bell Telephone Company of Canada. He became VP and was its second president from 1890- 1915. Sise directed Bell's emergence into a powerful business entity, molding its very structure: he oversaw dealings with independent telephone companies, its sale of territory in the Maritimes (1887-89) and on the Prairies (1908-09), and its incorporation of an equipment manufacturing subsidiary in 1895 (today known as Nortel Networks).

It's hard to begin any account of Ted Rogers without first discussing his father. Edward Samuel Rogers, Sr. was a telecommunications pioneer, legend and inventor of the alternating current (AC) tube, which enabled the radio to be plugged into household electrical outlets. Edward S. Rogers was entrepreneurial and started several companies, all capitalizing on his invention, on radio, manufacturing and wireless communications. Tragedy struck in May 1939 when at age 38, Edward S. Rogers passed away due to complications from an internal hemorrhage, leaving his wife, Velma, and five-year old son, Edward S. "Ted" Rogers, Jr. with a grand legacy.

Wightman Telecommunications is a staunchly independent and diversified company located in rural Clifford, Ontario. The company is nearly 100 years old and for 50 of those years Leila Wightman was a prime contributor to its success and survival, first as an operator and ultimately as the senior officer and the owner. This is her remarkable story.

Michael (Mike) Kedar has been involved in the telecommunications industry for over 40 years. His tenacity and perseverance to provide competitive telecom business services to Canadians is almost legendary in the Canadian telecom industry. A son of Czech and Yugoslavian parents who fled the Nazis in WWII to arrive in Israel, Mike Kedar is today rightfully hailed as an entrepreneur of persistence and diplomacy.

C.R.O (Bob) Munro was a formidable force in telecommunications law during the 1970s and 80s. Born in 1925 and a resident of Montreal, Quebec, Bob Munro was legal counsel to Canadian National Canadian Pacific Telecommunications (CNCP) during a period of unprecedented regulatory activity. A graduate of philosophy and history, a deeply religious and reflective man and a senior ranking litigator with the Department of Justice prior to CNCP, Bob Munro is credited with leading CNCP Telecommunications and Canada into a new telecom era, just at the time telecommunications was rousing from its sleep in the 1970s.

C.R.O (Bob) Munro was a formidable force in telecommunications law during the 1970s and 80s. Born in 1925 and a resident of Montreal, Quebec, Bob Munro was legal counsel to Canadian National Canadian Pacific Telecommunications (CNCP) during a period of unprecedented regulatory activity. A graduate of philosophy and history, a deeply religious and reflective man and a senior ranking litigator with the Department of Justice prior to CNCP, Bob Munro is credited with leading CNCP Telecommunications and Canada into a new telecom era, just at the time telecommunications was rousing from its sleep in the 1970s.

Frederic Newton Gisborne was born in Broughton, England in 1824 and settled in Canada in 1845. Gisborne first dreamed of a trans- Atlantic telegraphy connection while in his early 20's and quite boldly suggested the project to the Canadian government in 1850. The Canadian government was unwilling to act upon Gisborne's dream at that time, but others invested in Gisborne's early vision.

Canada's Telephone Operators

The "voice with a smile" is fading away. Telephone operators once played a central role for callers, making local connections for people and businesses long before the era of the dial telephone. "Number please." Most Canadians may have never heard that cheerful greeting from the local telephone switchboard operator, but for nearly a century this and other polite greetings welcomed the telephone user.

Digital World

Nortel receives this special recognition award from Canada's Telecommunications Hall of Fame for its role, as Northern Telecom, along with its affiliate, Bell-Northern Research (BNR), in pioneering digital communications worldwide. The award is based on the research and development of the world's first complete family of telecommunications systems based on digital technology. The "Digital World" initiative, announced in March 1976, became known as the project that launched the telecommunications industry into a new era and that laid the foundation for much of the industry's innovation for years to come.