Cable & Wireless welcomes Net2Phone VoIP to Cayman Islands, for business, not pleasure
Net2Phone Goes Island Hopping
(additional info)
By Vince Vittore
May 9, 2005 3:36 PM
telephonyonline.com
Net2Phone announced today that it has signed a deal to provide its hosted voice-over-IP platform to Cable & Wireless of Cayman.
Under terms of the agreement, the Net2Phone platform will be used to support C&W's new residential broadband VoIP service, branded as "NetSpeak," to its customers across all three of the Cayman Islands. The service will allow users to have unlimited calling and provide all of the traditional class-5 type services including caller ID, call waiting, voice mail and call forward. Additionally, C&W will be able to give users access to phone numbers across the U.S., U.K. and Canada, allowing friends and family of NetSpeak users to dial local numbers for connections to the islands.
The deal is also one of the few times an incumbent LEC--and one with little competition to speak of--is offering a VoIP service. Jonathan Reich, CEO of Net2Phone Global Services, said C&W recognizes that VoIP technology isn't going away and decided to be proactive.
"Whether they're an ILEC or a VoIP provider is almost irrelevant now," he said. "The technology is here and end users are adopting it. C&W, not unlike many of the licensed telcos that we have, has taken a perspective that they need to be maintaining their customer base."
Additionally, C&W sees the introduction of VoIP as a way to draw in new broadband users who might not necessarily become customers if it were a data-only product.
"Voice is the killer application for broadband," Reich said. "They kill two birds with one stone by not only bringing in a voice customer, but also bringing on a broadband subscriber." |
