ANALYSIS:
Comparing and Contrasting This Week's VOIP Announcements
December 15, 2003
By: Joan Engebretson
America's Network Weekly
CHICAGO – By now, most of the telecom community has heard the new catchphrase: "The killer broadband app is voice." After two high-profile VOIP-over-broadband announcements this week (one from Time Warner and one from AT&T), you'll probably start hearing that catchphrase from your accountant, your next door neighbor and the guy who gives you your coffee every morning at Starbucks.
Both new offerings aim to piggyback IP voice service onto local infrastructure already installed to support high-speed data and/or video connectivity. But in many ways, the two announcements are quite different.
First, although Time Warner will use its own cable TV infrastructure to deliver its voice offering, AT&T plans to ride on local DSL or cable infrastructure that may have been deployed by a competitor. Using an approach similar to that of upstart carrier Vonage, AT&T will ship anyone's broadband customer an adapter that will convert a conventional phone into a VOIP phone. The call then rides over the Internet to an AT&T gateway, where it is converted into a conventional circuit-switched call and delivered to the call recipient.
AT&T will support this offering using gateways that it began installing as early as 1997 to support international VOIP calls, said Joe Aibinder, AT&T product marketing director. Aibinder added that AT&T also will devote new capital expenditures to add gateway capacity and for call control, switching and application servers.
Time Warner, in contrast, is avoiding capital spending on its core network-for now, at least-and instead, has signed deals with Sprint and MCI to terminate calls to non-Time Warner customers. Those carriers actually will carry traffic in TDM format, after first running it through their own softswitches. "But we've both committed to doing an IP-to-IP hand-off," said Sprint director of service deployment Mark Chall.
To support the offering, Sprint will use the softswitches that it is already deploying as part of a plan to consolidate its central offices. "We're rolling those out on a weekly basis in every region," said Chall, adding that "it will be a long time before we max out the softswitches."
Sketchy details
Neither Time Warner nor AT&T would reveal detailed rollout plans. Time Warner did say, however, that it plans to offer VOIP service in all 31 of its markets in 27 states. "We're going to be very aggressive next year," a spokesman said.
AT&T said only that it would offer service in "major cities" across the US in 2004, beginning with select markets in the first quarter.
Time Warner also offered considerably more marketing details about its VOIP offering than AT&T did. The cable provider will offer unlimited local and long-distance calling for $39.95 if purchased in combination with either video or data service or for $49.95 for voice service alone.
AT&T declined to provide pricing information. "It will be a bundle of some sort," said Aibinder. |
