User talk:Tenafly11

Subject is the listing on Nortel.

The history is very Canada-centric, obviously appropriate for Canadian company that Nortel was. But the article minimizes and skips over its relationship with the Bell System and Western Electric.

At least for many of the post-WWII years, Northern Electric was clearly the Canadian Western Electric. Its logo, tech manuals, and products mimicked those of Western Electric. For example, the telephone handsets used by the Canadian Bell companies were identical to those used in the States, but were made by Northern Electric. Their switches and transmission products were also tightly aligned with those in the US, but were adapted for Canadian conditions. During those years, original products by Northern Electric were often essentially adaptations of Western Electric products. So it becomes disingenuous to claim "early" or "first" status for a product without noting its close connection with the Western Electric products.

I realize I write this without sources, which I hope to provide in a few months. But it is apparent to any reader with a knowledge of the telephone industry in the second half of the 20th century that the article clearly skips over a key part of Nortel's history.

This is not to deny or disparage the capabilities of independently-developed products of Northern Electric, but its integration with the Bell System is de-emphasized to the point where the overall article has a distinctively jingoist slant.

Tenafly11 (talk) 15:52, 2 April 2015 (UTC)