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Technology Stocks : Voice-on-the-net (VON), VoIP, Internet (IP) Telephony -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Frank A. Coluccio who wrote (2383)	1/21/1999 11:45:00 PM
From: Frank A. Coluccio	Respond to of 3178

ISPs ask FCC to wait on data ruling [[Thanks to Sillen on the Last Mile thread]] AT&T-led group pushes for cable approval By John Borland, Staff Writer, CNET January 21, 1999 A group of independent Internet service providers asked federal regulators today to put on hold a proposal that would give big local telephone companies the green light to expand their high-speed Internet access businesses. In a Washington press conference, the Internet Service Providers' Consortium, Commercial Internet Exchange, and six state ISP groups said that independent Internet service providers could be threatened by such a proposal. The Federal Communications Commission is expected to vote on the issue at the end of this month. "We think it's premature for the Commission to come out with their planned rulemaking on advanced services," said Barbara Dooley, president of the Commercial Internet Exchange, in a statement released to the press. The FCC proposed last year that Baby Bells be allowed to offer high-speed Internet services such as DSL, or digital subscriber lines, though separate subsidiaries. Without establishing a separate company, the Bells would have to "unbundle" their DSL networks, allowing competitors to lease the lines at discounts to resell to their own customers, commissioners proposed. Some of the regional Bell companies have protested against the plan themselves, saying they should be able to sell the advanced data services directly to consumers without going through the subsidiary, and without reselling the service to competitors. Allowing competitors access to the networks at a discount would sharply reduce the incentive to invest in high-speed lines, and slow the rollout of DSL, Bell executives have told the FCC in a series of hearings and regulatory filings. The local companies have enlisted a coalition of computer companies, including Compaq and Intel, as well as several federal legislators, on their side in the debate. But a stream of critics, ranging from state regulators to long distance companies, have told the FCC that the Bells should not be given the ability to offer high-speed data without an unbundling requirement, as the companies still have a virtual monopoly on phone lines that run into consumers' homes. DSL serves as an upgrade to existing phone lines, allowing them to handle high-speed Internet traffic alongside traditional voice calls. Most of the concerns over unbundling have been repeated since the FCC called for comments on their proposal last fall. But with a vote on the issue approaching later this month, critics are stepping up their campaigns. Today, the ISP groups said that the Bells have discriminated against some independent service providers in their existing rollouts of high-speed data service, making it difficult for customers to use the broadband lines with a non-Bell ISP. The FCC should not make any decision that can allow the dominant local phone companies to continue a record of "eager exploitation of monopoly privileges," said Sue Ashdown, executive director of the Coalition of Utah Independent Internet Service Providers. "It's clear that the impact of decisions about the incumbent local exchange carriers entering into advanced services, on small businesses, and ultimately, the American consumer, is not fully understood,'' Dooley added. The commission is expected to vote on the proposal at its January 28 meeting.

To: Frank A. Coluccio who wrote (2383)	1/22/1999 1:19:00 AM
From: Secret_Agent_Man	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 3178

Frank, please Help, or anyone else? what is involoved in building a network when you are not MCI, Sprint, Qwest etc. My question is how do you establish your own network if you're not laying cable along major routes but just installing switches here and there. How is this cost savings achieved? What is it about the simple fact of having switching equipment in some major cities that lowers cost. Won't you still be billed over intercontinental and transcontinental routes by the major network players? Byron Glenn this was a question from another poster on the yahoo thread for IDT and frankly, pun n10did, I have forgotten almost everything I almost knew about it.

To: Frank A. Coluccio who wrote (2383)	1/27/1999 6:59:00 AM
From: Frank A. Coluccio	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 3178

*Level 3 To Perform Live Test of its VoIP Platform Next Week for Wall Street Analysts;* Company Claims That Its Rates will be 20% Lower than its Competitors But Lower than what? Read on. nwfusion.com Level 3 crows about IP voice, fire-sale prices By Tim Greene Network World, 01/25/99 OMAHA, NEB. - If you think you just cut a good deal on your long-distance service, think again. Level 3 Communications is promising long-distance voice services starting later this year that are 20% less expensive than those of its competitors. To prove its network's mettle, the company next week will demonstrate its voice-over-IP technology to Wall Street analysts in New York. Level 3 will show off voice quality by placing calls over the network while the analysts view a diagram of how calls travel through the company's net. Level 3 would not say exactly what it will charge for the IP long-distance service, but many corporate customers already negotiate circuit- switched long-distance contracts for as little as 4 to 5 cents per minute. Twenty percent off that rate would put the price per minute at 3.2 to 4 cents per minute. And the rate will continue to plummet, according to James Crowe, Level 3's CEO. "Our goal is to build a company that can drop the cost of moving a bit . . . at a rate of tens of percent per year. If we do that, we're going to see demand go up even faster," Crowe says. "Now that's phenomenal," says John Welsh, communications engineer at Applied Systems, Inc. in University Park, Ill., maker of software for independent insurance agencies. "I'd say send me more information." He says there are factors to consider beyond just the per-minute rate, such as the cost of the T-1 to connect to the Level 3 network. The big three long-distance carriers - AT&T, MCI WorldCom and Sprint - will eat two-thirds to three-quarters of the cost of the local T-1 in order to win long-term contracts, Welsh says. That can amount to $750 or more per month per T-1. He says he would also want to hear the quality of Level 3's voice. The trick behind the price cut is well-known: IP gear is less expensive than circuit-switched telephone gear. If all goes well with beta tests, starting later this winter, the service will be rolled out by year-end to 25 cities. Customers can expect the prices to continue to drop dramatically because Level 3's network is based on data gear. As the price of that equipment continues to spiral downward, service prices will follow accordingly, Crowe says. As prices drop, he expects customers to use the service more. The net impact for corporate customers? "Voice service at a big discount to what they are currently paying, with quality that is just as good and a cost structure that promises to improve not two or three or four percent a year, but at tens of percent a year," Crowe says. Corporate customers will buy a dedicated line into a Level 3 point of presence (POP), much as they do today with traditional long-distance services. That differs from the model followed by many IP-voice services, which require each caller to dial a POP and punch in a personal identification number before dialing the desired number. Initially, Level 3's IP-voice service will be backed up by traditional circuit-switched voice service that the company will buy in bulk from other long-haul carriers, Crowe says. The traditional voice network will act as a spillover if the IP network runs into technical problems. As Level 3 works the glitches out of its software, the need for a backup will fade. Indeed, the Level 3 CEO says he will sell no IP telephony service before its time. "If this was not new code and we were absolutely certain that it was rock solid, we would go commercial today. But the reason that we and everybody else beta-tests is because there is always a process of eliminating bugs." Local IP-telephony service is another nine months or a year away from beta-testing, Crowe says. So far, Level 3 has made its money selling leased lines, Internet access and managed modem services, as well as housing customer Web and telephony gear in its switching offices. The IP voice is more along the lines of what people expect from Level 3 based on its all-IP manifesto. But Crowe says setting up Level 3's 16,000-mile fiber backbone and selecting hardware to run it takes time.