Iristel is a Canadian provider of telecommunication services that is a

competitive local exchange carrier A competitive local exchange carrier (CLEC), in the United States and Canada, is a telecommunications provider company (sometimes called a " carrier") competing with other, already established carriers, generally the incumbent local exchange carrie ...

(CLEC). The company was founded in 1999 and is headquartered in

Markham, Ontario Markham () is a city in the Regional Municipality of York, Ontario, Canada. It is approximately northeast of Downtown Toronto. In the 2021 Census, Markham had a population of 338,503, which ranked it the largest in York Region, fourth largest ...

. Iristel has deployed multiple redundant switching facilities and

points of presence A point of presence (PoP) is an artificial demarcation point or network interface point between communicating entities. A common example is an ISP point of presence, the local access point that allows users to connect to the Internet with their ...

(PoPs) nationally. Iristel has coverage in all ten provinces,

Yukon Yukon (; ; formerly called Yukon Territory and also referred to as the Yukon) is the smallest and westernmost of Canada's three territories. It also is the second-least populated province or territory in Canada, with a population of 43,964 as ...

Northwest Territories The Northwest Territories (abbreviated ''NT'' or ''NWT''; french: Territoires du Nord-Ouest, formerly ''North-Western Territory'' and ''North-West Territories'' and namely shortened as ''Northwest Territory'') is a federal territory of Canada. ...

, and

Nunavut Nunavut ( , ; iu, ᓄᓇᕗᑦ , ; ) is the largest and northernmost Provinces and territories of Canada#Territories, territory of Canada. It was separated officially from the Northwest Territories on April 1, 1999, via the ''Nunavut Act'' ...

Background

Iristel was established in 1999 by Samer Bishay. The company was granted a carrier license by the

Canadian Radio-Television Commission The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC; french: Conseil de la radiodiffusion et des télécommunications canadiennes, links=) is a public organization in Canada with mandate as a regulatory agency for broadcasti ...

in 2000. Iristel has domestic operator licenses in

Algeria ) , image_map = Algeria (centered orthographic projection).svg , map_caption = , image_map2 = , capital = Algiers , coordinates = , largest_city = capital , relig ...

Dominica Dominica ( or ; Kalinago: ; french: Dominique; Dominican Creole French: ), officially the Commonwealth of Dominica, is an island country in the Caribbean. The capital, Roseau, is located on the western side of the island. It is geographically ...

, and

Romania Romania ( ; ro, România ) is a country located at the crossroads of Central Europe, Central, Eastern Europe, Eastern, and Southeast Europe, Southeastern Europe. It borders Bulgaria to the south, Ukraine to the north, Hungary to the west, S ...

, with an additional 20 locations. Iristel launched its High Definition (HD) VoIP Telephone Service in February 2007.

History

By May 2007, the company added Domestic and Global SIP Trunking and Hosted PBX to their enterprise VoIP services. In December 2007, Iristel began to offer dual mode

Wi-Fi Wi-Fi () is a family of wireless network protocols, based on the IEEE 802.11 family of standards, which are commonly used for local area networking of devices and Internet access, allowing nearby digital devices to exchange data by radio wave ...

-enabled

GSM The Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) is a standard developed by the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) to describe the protocols for second-generation ( 2G) digital cellular networks used by mobile devices such as ...

to mobile phones. In June 2008, Iristel began offering Iristel IP Mobility, a wireless IP service that combines VoIP over Wi-Fi/GSM, Single Number Reach and

Fixed Mobile Convergence Fixed may refer to: * ''Fixed'' (EP), EP by Nine Inch Nails * ''Fixed'', an upcoming 2D adult animated film directed by Genndy Tartakovsky * Fixed (typeface), a collection of monospace bitmap fonts that is distributed with the X Window System * ...

. Iristel IP Mobility provides users with a single point of contact for fixed, mobile, and Wi-Fi calls. Users have a single phone number for both inbound and outbound calling across multiple devices. They can also switch calls back and forth between the mobile network and the VoIP network, without interruption to reduce cellular charges. Settings are configurable through an online portal. In January 2009, Iristel and Algeria Telecom announced an exclusive agreement to offer Inbound Direct Inward Dialling (DID) services to subscribers around the world who want an Algerian number for their existing phone line In February 2009,

MTS Allstream Bell MTS Inc. (formerly Manitoba Telecom Services) is a subsidiary of BCE Inc. that operates telecommunications services in Manitoba. Originally established as Manitoba Government Telephones after the Government of Manitoba purchased the Manito ...

, a wholly owned subsidiary of Manitoba Telecom Services Inc. and a communication solutions provider in Canada, chose Iristel to convert its

Time-division multiplexing Time-division multiplexing (TDM) is a method of transmitting and receiving independent signals over a common signal path by means of synchronized switches at each end of the transmission line so that each signal appears on the line only a fracti ...

(TDM) voice traffic to Internet Protocol (IP). In August 2011, Gogii Inc, the makers of textPlus, announced the app can be now used with free Canadian telephone numbers, provided by Iristel. textPlus is an app supported by iPhone, iPod touch and Android which allows users to send free unlimited group text messages Iristel has performed various

interoperability Interoperability is a characteristic of a product or system to work with other products or systems. While the term was initially defined for information technology or systems engineering services to allow for information exchange, a broader defi ...

tests with the most important VoIP hardware & software manufacturers:

Polycom Poly, formerly Polycom, a part of HP Inc., is an American multinational corporation that develops video, voice and content collaboration and communication technology. Polycom was co-founded in 1990 by Brian L Hinman and Jeffrey Rodman. In 2018 P ...

Mediatrix Mediatrix is a title given to Mary, mother of Jesus in Christianity. It refers to the intercessory role of the Blessed Virgin Mary as a mediator in the salvific redemption by her son Jesus Christ and that he bestows graces through her. Mediatrix i ...

Avaya Avaya Holdings Corp., often shortened to Avaya (), is an American multinational technology company headquartered in Durham, North Carolina, that provides cloud communications and workstream collaboration services. The company's platform includ ...

Grandstream Founded in 2002, Grandstream Networks is a manufacturer of IP voice and video communications equipment, video surveillance, gateways and analog telephone adapters (ATAs), and Asterisk-based IP-PBX appliances. Grandstream supplies small and medi ...

Toshiba , commonly known as Toshiba and stylized as TOSHIBA, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. Its diversified products and services include power, industrial and social infrastructure system ...

3CX Phone System The 3CX Phone System is the software-based private branch exchange (PBX) Phone system developed and marketed by the company, 3CX. The 3CX Phone System is based on the SIP (Session Initiation Protocol) standard and enables extensions to make cal ...

Snom Snom Technology GmbH is a German company which manufactures Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) telephones, based on the IETF standard Session Initiation Protocol (SIP). Snom's products are targeted at the small- to medium-sized business sector ...

and . In May 2012, Iristel became a major shareholder in Ice Wireless. In October 2018, Iristel purchased Telecommunications de l'est (TDE), a company located in Eastern Quebec. TDE now integrates ImobileCa, an Iristel subsidiary created in May 2018 with the acquisition of ImobileCa by the Ontario company. The latter had a non-operating cellular license in eastern Quebec.

References

External links

* {{Canadian VOIP Companies based in Markham, Ontario Telecommunications companies established in 1999 Privately held companies of Canada 1999 establishments in Ontario

Background

History

See also

References

External links