Ntop/Level 3 partnering
Level 3 making VoIP inroads
By Chris Walsh, Rocky Mountain News
May 3, 2004
NEW ORLEANS - Level 3 Communications Inc. is making headway in what could become a hot new market: technology that allows consumers to make and receive phone calls through high- speed Internet connections.
The Broomfield-based [Colorado] telecommunications provider today will announce that its residential Internet-based telephone service is now available in 50 markets. The company also has signed up its first big customer for the service: Net2Phone, which provides Internet telephone services.
Level 3 will make the announcements at the cable industry's annual trade show here this week.
The company, which operates fiber-optic networks that form the Internet's backbone, is furthering its push into what's known as voice over Internet protocol.
VoIP basically refers to telephone connections that use the Internet. Level 3 has been offering VoIP to businesses for five years but just recently entered the consumer side of the market.
The company's technology allows other businesses, such as cable providers, to offer local telephone services to consumers via broadband Internet connections.
Released in March, Level 3's residential VoIP service will take a big step forward by partnering with Net2Phone, said Sureel Choksi, the company's president of soft-switch services.
Net2Phone works with cable companies to offer VoIP services.
"It's really all about giving consumers additional choices for local phone service," Choksi said.
The residential service is available to cable operators and other companies in 50 markets, and Level 3 says that will hit 300 markets by year's end.
But that doesn't mean the service is being used in that many markets. Level 3 declined to provide more specific information.
VoIP is expected to be a hot topic at the cable trade show, which features more than 300 exhibitors.
Cable companies such as CableVision, Time Warner and Cox Communications all offer VoIP services. Comcast is testing it. |
