Comcast to Join Other Cable Firms, Offer Phone Service to Internet Customers
Posted on: Tuesday, 11 January 2005, 09:00 CST
Jan. 11--Comcast Corp. said Monday that it will offer telephone service to subscribers who are using its broadband Internet service.
The company plans to offer the service, called Digital Voice, to 15 million homes in 20 markets this year and in the rest of its 68 markets by the end of 2006.
Brian Roberts, Comcast's chief executive, called Digital Voice an "engine for growth" and said he hopes to piggyback it on the success of Comcast's high-speed Internet service, which has about 6.5 million customers.
"We want to deliver over time a different phone experience," Roberts said at a telecommunications conference.
Comcast tested Digital Voice in Philadelphia, Springfield, Mass., and Indianapolis and will offer the service in those regions first. A date for a Metroplex rollout has not been set. The service will cost about $39.95 a month for customers who have broadband service.
Time Warner, Charter Communications and Cablevision offer the service. Upstarts like Vonage, with 400,000 customers, offer telephone service via the Internet as well.
Brooke Schultz, a Vonage spokeswoman, said Comcast's service will not directly compete with Vonage. Schultz said Vonage offers service for prices well below Comcast's. She also said Vonage's service, where customers can use a phone wherever there is an Internet connection, is more mobile than Comcast's.
"We do not look at them as a direct competitor," Schultz said. "If anything, they bring more validation to a market and technology where, two or three years ago, people said it would never work."
But Carmel Group analyst Jimmy Schaeffler said that Internet phone service will be highly competitive.
Schaeffler, a multimedia analyst with the research firm based in California, said larger companies will have an advantage.
"They should not say they aren't worried about competitors," Schaeffler said of Vonage. "Anybody in that space not worried isn't doing their job."
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Source: Fort Worth Star-Telegram (Fort Worth, Texas)
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