A Penny for Your Minute [A+Net/ASND article]
soundingboardmag.com
By Peter Meade
Treating long distance Internet protocol (IP)
telephony rates like a game of limbo, A+Net
(www.aplus.net) has lowered the per-minute bar to
a penny a minute.
But like all good games, the deal won't last forever.
The San Diego-based Internet service provider
(ISP) is offering the low-low price for the rest of the
year during its beta test in four U.S. cities covering
13 different area codes.
The service is only available to A+Net's existing
customers in Alexandria, Va., Atlanta, New York
and San Diego. "The one cent covers the call
termination costs for our ISPs," says technical
director John S. Bown. When A+Net rolls out its
service nationwide in first quarter 1999, most likely
the rate will be four cents to six cents per minute, he
says.
At that price, A+Net would be less expensive than
Qwest Communications International Inc.
(www.qwest.com), which charges 7.5 cents per
minute for its IP telephony service, but in the same
range as ICG Communications Inc.
(www.icgcomm.com), which launched its service in
31 cities last week at 5.9 cents per minute.
A+Net, a division of Abacus America Inc.
(www.abac.com), is providing service in a different
way than Qwest and ICG, each of which has its own
private IP network. A+Net is relying on putting
together a cooperative effort between ISPs around
the world, Bown says. A+Net currently is working
with 25 such providers totaling 250 points of
presence (POPs), so there is plenty of deal making
still to be done as there are some 1,200 ISPs in the
U.S. and about 40,000 worldwide, according to
Bown.
A+Net expects to strike deals with enough of these
ISPs that the company will have a worldwide
network by the second quarter of next year. This
would involve installing Ascend Communications Inc.
(www.ascend.com) gateways at each POP of a
partnering ISP, Bown says.
While this is admittedly an aggressive and
adventurous undertaking, Bown says the biggest
challenge for A+Net is setting up an international
clearinghouse to handle the billing for the calls made
over the growing network. To do this, A+Net is
using Rodopi software from Intranet Software Inc.
(www.rodopi.com), another Abacus division. The
software permits participating ISPs to exchange
billing information through an Internet roaming
agreement. But unlike other such existing
agreements, where participants are charged for
roaming services, in most cases Rodopi users "pay"
for roaming by providing similar services to other
participating ISPs. This cooperative approach is
much more appealing to smaller ISPs, which
otherwise might not be able to afford to be involved
in such a situation, according to Bown.
"Small or regional ISPs have been left out of the
bigger picture of IP telephony because they can't
offer nationwide service," says Bown, who
categorized the current state of voice over the
Internet (VoIP) services as being where circuit
switched telephony was in the days when party lines
still existed. "Sure, there is VoIP available now, but
only with some inconveniences. VoIP can only be a
robust success if it is everywhere and as easy to use
as conventional telephony. We're trying to help all
ISPs get their part in the bigger picture."
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