Qwest Communications today provided more details about its plans to deliver voice over IP. The RBOC will do a small residential trial of local IP-based voice service in Minneapolis – where startup service provider Vonage Holdings Corp. is already offering VoIP services -- starting next month. Between 100 and 200 subscribers will receive the service for free, according to Claire Maledon, spokeswoman for Qwest.
The RBOC elected to make Minneapolis its first residential VoIP market since it is one of the company’s largest markets, says Maledon.
A federal court recently ruled Minnesota regulators do not have the authority to treat Internet telephone companies, such as Vonage, the same as traditional phone companies. However, the FCC has yet to rule on how, if at all, to regulate IP phone companies.
Qwest will provide consumers with IP phones for the service, which will include GUI-based features such as find me-follow me and conference calling, says Maledon, adding that the offering is considered a secondary line offering at this point.
Although Qwest today announced its selection of Lucent Technology Inc. to provide it with next-generation 5E-XC switches and packet-to-circuit conversion gateways, Maledon tells XCHANGE that equipment will not be used in the Minneapolis residential VoIP trial. Rather, existing equipment in Qwest’s network will support the VoIP trial, she says, declining to provide what vendors and or other service providers are involved in delivering the trial service.
News about Qwest’s potential plans to offer Internet-based phone service first broke earlier this month when the RBOC’s CEO Richard Notebaert reportedly mentioned in a speech in Arlington, Va., that Qwest plans to offer VoIP in Minnesota and possibly Arizona to save on regulatory expenses and other costs. “Our objective in offering voice over IP at the mass market level – because we already do it in the enterprise space – will be to explore this path, to take this journey as the path to deregulation,” the Minneapolis Star Tribune quoted Notebaert as saying.
Maledon didn’t have any information on Qwest’s plans to offer residential VoIP service in Arizona.
As for Qwest’s deal with Lucent, that includes 5E-XC switching equipment used initially to upgrade the service provider’s existing local circuit-based voice network. In the future, Qwest expects to use the 5E-XCs as well as Lucent’s new Intelligent Media Gateway, among other offerings, to support VoIP offerings, says Maledon.
Lucent today unveiled the gateway as part of a broader announcement about its new Accelerate Voice over IP strategy. Accelerate is the name under which Lucent is marketing the gateway and a variety of existing Lucent products. It is also the banner for Lucent’s strategy to help service providers generate new revenues from business and residential customers by delivering such things as unified communications, multimedia messaging, location-based services, IP Centrex, and voice and data virtual private networks, and reap other benefits from delivering voice over IP.
The Accelerate portfolio from Lucent today includes the Lucent Softswitch, the Lucent 5E-XC switch products and applications, the iGEN Compact Switch, new Lucent intelligent media gateway, EBS Multimedia Portal, PacketIN portfolio of applications and services including MiLife solutions for mobile operators, Flexent portfolio of mobile networking solutions, AnyPath Messaging System, AnyMedia Access System, iMerge Gateway, APX Universal Gateways, MAX TNT Universal Gateways, PacketStar (PSAX) Multiservice Media Gateways, Lucent VPN Firewall, Access Point IP Services Routers, Navis iOperations software and Lucent services.
