Exclusive: Cox Decides VoIP is Ready for Prime Time
Sep 13, 2004
By: Al Senia
America's Network Enews
americasnetwork.com
Cox Communications, a cable MSO that has been highly successful providing wired telephone service to more than 1 million customers in more than 13 markets, has decided to bring VoIP into the mainstream of its telephone product portfolio.
Cox is preparing to extend its first VoIP service offering in Roanoke, Va. to four additional markets within the next few weeks, with an official announcement expected at the U.S. Telecom Association (USTA) show early next month in Las Vegas.
An executive at the company says the Roanoke VoIP initiative, which was launched in December, has proven so successful that all future telephone initiatives will be VoIP-oriented. Additionally, existing telephone customers could be converted to VoIP technology at some unspecified later date.
“We view VoIP not as a technology, but a service,” says Mike Pacifico, director of marketing, Cox Digital Telephone. “Our take rate in Roanoke is at the same take rate as in our other (non-VoIP) deployments. It is looking to us like we will be deploying VoIP much more in the future.”
The service isn’t being marketed as VoIP-specific. It is marketed under the same digital telephone service banner that Cox uses for all its phone customers, essentially making the VoIP technology transparent to the customer.
Cox’s move comes at a time when cable competitors such as Mediacom, Adelphia, Time-Warner Cable, Comcast, Charter and others are rolling out VoIP initiatives, often in partnership with AT&T Corp., MCI, Sprint, Vonage and other service providers.
Pacifico also says all its additional markets where Cox plans to offer telephone service - basically 11 markets, including the latest four -- will be configured for VoIP service. He adds that the company has worked closely with vendors in the lab and in field trials to move the technology to a quality level that Cox finds acceptable for its customers.
Pacifico would not provide specifics on the number of VoIP customers Cox currently has in Roanoke. However, the company passes 88,000 homes in the city and has 62,000 cable customers in the municipality.
Pacifico says Cox has not noticed any difference in customer churn or complaints between its VoIP and wired telephone customers. Nationally, Cox’s phone customer churn averages 3%. The company’s VoIP customers pay the same price for the VoIP service as they do for the wired service, although the VoIP service contains more features.
Cox also is able to provide the VoIP service to customers who lack high-speed broadband access by providing special modems that offer high-speed access for voice, but blocks it for data.
Pacifico says Cox expects to reduce its costs through VoIP by leveraging its existing back-office systems and architecture for the VoIP market launches.
Cox operates the VoIP service on its own high-speed Internet backbone that interconnects its 14 regional data centers and three services data center that serve as the hosting locations for VoIP soft switch technology. |
