From Sounding Board
Packet Telephony: Still Trying to Break Out
Technical Challenges Slow Launches of Cable IP Voice
and Voice Over DSL
BY FRED DAWSON
....
"Cable operators are impatient, but they acknowledged that
there is more to the problem of getting to IP voice services
than having access to a supply of DOCSIS 1.1 modems.
"It's not that the technology doesn't work," says Steve
Craddock, vice president for strategic planning at Comcast
Corp. (www.comcast.com), which is testing IP voice
services in Union, N.J. But there are several things that
need to be accomplished before commercial launches
become feasible, he says.
"In our humble opinion, what's required for prime time is
increased network availability, low-power [consuming]
clients [modems], DOCSIS 1.1 and integrated support
systems," Craddock says. "And if I want to do primary line,
I have to add to that a full feature set."
Such issues are key reasons why cable companies who are
already in the voice business using proprietary
circuit-switched cable-phone technology have been
standing pat on their current platform strategies. Cox
Communications Inc. (www.cox.com), for example, which
now serves over 120,000 customers with first-line voice
service using the circuit system supplied by Arris
Interactive LLC, a joint venture of Nortel Networks Corp.
(www.nortelnetworks.com) and ANTEC Corp.
(www.antec.com), won't consider switching until several
conditions, including those listed by Craddock, are met,
says Alex Best, executive vice president of engineering at
Cox.
Moreover, he adds, IP voice has to match or beat his
current costs, which come to about $650 to $700 per
customer, not counting the costs of cable plant upgrades.
"I'm prepared to switch when the technology enables me to
provide lifeline phone service with all the CLASS features
at a quality level equivalent to what I'm providing with
circuit-switched telephony today," Best says."
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