New York City Customers May Be Among Nation's First to Try AT&T's VoIP Service
Posted on: Thursday, 11 December 2003, 06:00 CST
Dec. 12--The New York City metropolitan area may be among the first markets in which AT&T offers consumers a new type of cheaper phone service using Internet technology, chief executive David Dorman said yesterday.
AT&T will roll out the service in cities across the nation next year, aiming for the top 100 markets, including select metropolitan markets in the first three months of 2004.
Dorman did not say how much AT&T will charge for a bundle of unlimited local and long-distance calls, but he said the rates will be competitive with those of other companies offering similar service. "There is no reason we should lose on price," he said at a Credit Suisse First Boston investment conference in Manhattan.
The technology, which sends "voice packets" over systems used for Internet traffic but uses regular telephones, will replace traditional systems because it is cheaper and offers computerized features, Dorman said.
Cable-TV companies, traditional phone companies and new independents are racing to market the service, whose technology is called Voice over Internet Protocol. AT&T has been testing residential VoIP in New Jersey and two other states since October.
Cablevision Systems Corp. is offering its Optimum Voice version of VoIP to cable customers for $34.95 per month in parts of the New York metro area, while Time Warner Cable, charging $39.95, is hooking up with MCI and Sprint to roll out its service in its 31 markets next year, including parts of New York City. Vonage Holdings, an independent with 80,000 VoIP customers, charges $34.99.
AT&T, the nation's biggest long-distance service, with 40 million residential customers, is counting on its size and brand name to help it win customers for VoIP, even though it has been losing customers for traditional service to competitors. Among the company's VoIP features, users can have calls to their numbers relayed to five other phones, all at once or one after another. They can check their phone logs going back six months, and they can hold conference calls among 10 phones, a feature popular with teens, Dorman said.
Partly because it is seeking to reduce the $8 billion in annual fees it pays for connecting to regional phone company lines, AT&T has been asking the FCC to declare that VoIP will be virtually unregulated, because it is a form of Internet service, like e-mail. Last week, FCC chairman Michael Powell indicated after a hearing on VoIP that he favors very limited regulation.
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