Origins of the BNR Edmonton Lab

Northern Telecom’s Western Canada Initiative

The Emonton Lab would very likely never have come into existence without the vision and efforts of senior Nortel executives: Walter Light and David Vice. In addition, Dr. John Taylor‘s contributions resulted in a triumvirate of great leadership talent.

Walter Light

During Walter Light’s tenure as President and CEO of Northern Telecom in the late 1970s and early 1980s, he drove a major regional expansion initiative into Western Canada focused on establishing decentralized manufacturing and research facilities to tap into regional markets and satisfy local government requirements. [1, 2]

The defining components of Walter Light’s Western Canada initiatives under his leadership included:

• The ‘Digital World’ Strategy: While not exclusive to the West, Walter Light heavily drove the initiative to make Northern Telecom the first company to offer a complete line of fully digital telecommunications systems. This technology was rapidly deployed to modernize the networks of Western Canadian provincial crown corporations and utilities, such as Alberta Government Telephones (AGT), SaskTel, and Manitoba Telephone System (MTS)
• Research & Development (Bell-Northern Research) Expansion: Northern Telecom established R&D and manufacturing hubs in the West—specifically in Edmonton and Calgary—to support the pioneering ‘Digital World’ strategy. [1]
• Manufacturing Decentralization: Northern Telecom established substantial manufacturing plants in Western Canada, notably in Saskatoon and Calgary. Saskatoon focussed on the manufacture of optical fiber, cables and the associated Fiber Optics Transmission systems. Calgary specialized in producing telephone sets and business communications systems such as the Vantage series PBX, and later, the very successful SL-1 /Meridian PBX. [1].
• Northern Telecom had operated out of Winnipeg since 1908.

The BNR Edmonton facility focused on several key areas:

• Collaboration with Local Carriers: Operating out of Edmonton wouild have allowed BNR engineers to collaborate and test deployments with regional networks such as Alberta Government Telephones (AGT) and Edmonton Telephones (Ed Tel), Saskatchewan Telecommunications (SaskTel) & The Manitoba Telephone System (MTS) — accelerating real-world feedback.  For a variety of reasons, little actual direct cooperation and interaction ensued.
• Testing and Integration: The lab worked directly with Northern Telecom’s Fiber Optic product manufacturing plants in Saskatoon and later, St-Laurent to transfer BNR designs into production.  Similarly, the manufacturing facility in Calgary was supported by BNR Edmonton’s Vantage software product development team.

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David Vice 

David Vice was a prominent Canadian business executive and visionary engineer who served as President of Northern Telecom (later Nortel) from 1985 to 1990. Often described as “the best CEO Northern Telecom never had,” Vice played a monumental role in spearheading the digital switching and fiber-optic technologies that revolutionized global telecommunications. [1, 2]

• David Vice was stationed in Edmonton, Alberta, in 1980 t& 1981 while serving as a regional group vice-president for Northern Telecom. [1]
• During his time in the city, he managed Western Canadian operations and publicly commented on regional economic development and high-technology imbalances before returning to eastern corporate headquarters.
• Vice spent his entire career—spanning 37 years—rising through the ranks at Northern Telecom until his retirement in 1992 as Vice Chairman. [1, 2]
• Appointed President in 1985, Vice took on the heavy lifting of managing Northern Telecom’s technology research and execution.
• Under his technical oversight, Northern Telecom successfully provided terminal equipment for MCI’s national fiber-optic cable network and aggressively expanded into global markets amid high-stakes international competition. [1, 2]
• He was a great friend of BNR. He was a fierce and vocal public advocate for expanding Canadian competitiveness in manufacturing, technical education, and engineering.
• He graduated from Queen’s University in 1955 with a B.S. in Electrical Engineering. He later earned a Master’d degree in Engineering from Carleton University. [1]

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Dr. John C. W. Taylor

Another Executive for whom we can be thankful: John Taylor, aka ‘Dr. John’ — he was was Group Vice President for Transmission Products at Northern Telecom during the 1980s and early 1990s.

He earned a BSc in Physics from the University of St Andrews in Scotland and a PhD from the University of Alberta, where he became Canada’s first Post Doctoral Industrial Fellow.

During this era, John held significant responsibilities within the company’s core technology divisions. Taylor was highly respected both as a technologist and as a senior executive — he was a key visionary behind Nortel’s highly successful and profitable Fiber World® product ecosystem.

He was not directly ‘hands-on’ with the creation and operation of the Edmonton Lab. However, he had a major inflluence on BNR Edmonton staff who relocated to Ottawa after the Lab’s closing. Taylor was a champion for BNR’s lead on new Fiber Optic product developments, notably: OC-12 and OC48 SONET products. Without Taylor’s strong leadership, funding for these developments would have been channeled through Nortel manufacturing divisions. This would have likely resulted in a much less visionary (and sless uccesful) product line — and fewer opportunities for BNR Edmonton alumni, following the closing of the Edmonton Lab.

Beginning in the late 1970s, Nortel had steadily advanced its fiber optic transmission products along the industry’s learning curve, yet it was not in a leadership position. Due mainly to the visionary and capable leadership of Dr. John Taylor as business leader of the Optical Transmission Division, this quickly changed, beginning in 1985.

Dr. Taylor strongly supported the investments in advanced optical device technology, considerably increased R&D spending on optical transmission products, and made the company very active in the establishment of the new SONET/SDH industry standards.

Starting in 1989, he led the development and aggressive marketing of a new, efficient network architecture, referred to by Northern Telecom as FiberWorld®. While many major competitors had hedged their bets and taken ‘a wait and see’ attitude to the new standards, Nortel’s systems were now fully compliant with them. As it happened, SONET/SDH was universally adopted; telecommunications operating companies lost interest in noncompliant equipment for new systems, rapidly replacing the obsolete installed base. By investing and betting on the new standards, Nortel became a strong contender in the ranks of the leading global vendors.

A major corporate restructuring in the early 1990s under then-CEO Paul Stern, Taylor’s division’s responsibilities were folded into other units and as a result, he subsequently left the company.

His abrupt ousting, alongside other veteran executives who were cleared out without warning, caused deep-seated unhappiness and a massive drop in morale among the rank-and-file employees, forcing Stern to hold emergency management meetings later that year to address internal dissent.

Post-Nortel, Taylor co-founded Home Wireless Networks, leveraging his background in telecommunication product development. His co-founders were RIchard Snelling (a former Executive Vice President of Networks at BellSouth), alongside RF expert P. Stuckey McIntosh, who served as CTO.

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Other Regional Labs

Ultimately, the Edmonton facility was one of a several global satellite labs— alongside locations such as Nun’s Island, Harlow in the UK, Tokyo, and Mountain View (in Silicon Valley) — that helped established Northern Telecom’s status as a dominant leader in the global digital revolution. [1]

1. Research Triangle Park (RTP), North Carolina: A major BNR campus involved in developing digital switching and PBX systems for the U.S. market.
2. Richardson, Texas (Telecom Corridor): A strategic lab focused on wireless technology and switching software.
3. Palo Alto, California: Linked to a Northern Telecom plant, establishing an R&D presence in Silicon Valley.
4. Ann Arbor, Michigan: A lab that grew after acquisitions, concentrating on terminal devices and hardware.
5. Norcross / Atlanta, Georgia: A joint lab created to address regional telephone carrier needs.

United Kingdom

• Harlow, Essex: Formed a focus of BNR’s European presence (heavily bolstered through acquisitions like STC plc), executing deep research into optical networks, fiber optics, and advanced transmission hardware.
• Maidenhead, Berkshire: Operated alongside Harlow to manage European product localization and telecom network engineering.

East Asia & Australia

Tokyo, Japan: BNR established an official regional lab in Tokyo to focus on localized product adaptations and advanced telecommunications development for the East Asian market. 
Wollongong, Australia: While geopolitically part of Oceania, the BNR lab in Wollongong served as a major R&D hub supporting Nortel’s business across the broader Asia-Pacific region.