Telephone consortium Stentor is forming a multimedia company with Fred Klinkhammer, one of the founders of Imax, heading the outfit.

Last spring, Stentor announced the Beacon Initiative, a multi-tier plan to push the telcos onto the I-way.

One tenet of the plan was to set up a company to test and supply multimedia services and applications.

Stentor’s new $250 million company is called MultiMedia Inc. and is expected to be involved in all aspects of multimedia applications, including digital formatting, rights negotiations, joint ventures, brokering and interface systems. The company is also expected to provide third-party service bureau support.

mmi will be based in Toronto.