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Archives
January 2003 Issue
AT FIRST GLANCE
VoIP in 2003
LAURA HAMILTON
"It appears that cable companies are possibly the only organizations that are more dysfunctional and poorly managed than telecom providers." That's a comment I recently came across in Network World. The amusing thing is it's in a story called, "Why the Cable Companies Will Win," which hails the industry's technical prowess.
Cable companies are possibly the only organizations more fun for journalists to take swipes at than telcos. Be that as it may, cable can win, and the triple-play strategy is its not-so-secret weapon. But while many operators are offering digital TV and high-speed data, telephony has proved a slippery beast for cable engineers to get their hands around.
Circuit-switched technology is tried-and-true, but it's expensive, and out of reach for many ops. Voice over Internet protocol (VoIP) offers a cost-effective option, and vendors now have solid product offerings. However, integrating all those solutions together won't prove a simple task.
The industry looks to the largest MSO to take the lead on such engineering chores. So, VoIP proponents weren't happy when Comcast CEO Brian Roberts said recently that the MSO is "not going to look to telephony to drive cash flow" this year.
However, Roberts' remarks don't mean that Comcast is mothballing its VoIP plans. Its trials in Philadelphia will continue, Mark Coblitz, Comcast's senior vice president of strategic planning, promises. "The Philadelphia work is true, primary line service set to compete directly with the telcos," he adds.
And Steve Craddock, Comcast's senior vice president of new media says, "For the next year it's going to be my group's job, and the job of some of the people in the operations cable group, to figure out the template that makes VoIP a real, live scalable service."
But it's not just the biggest op that will tinker with VoIP. Liberty Cablevision of Puerto Rico recently launched the next phase of its end-to-end IP telephony service over HFC. Working with VoIP vendor Net2Phone, Liberty will make service available to 4,000 subs, offering call waiting, caller ID and directory assistance among other services. Regulatory features such as E-911 service and CALEA also will be tested and deployed.
That work has peaked the interest of Arris, which will partner with Net2Phone to offer other ops, even small ones, a managed end-to-end net, supporting PacketCable VoIP.
After many years of hype, this year's VoIP trials could prove next year's path to widespread triple plays.
 Back to January 2003 Issue
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