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Digital Phone Service Coming ; Time Warner Cable Will Soon Offer Phone Service.

Posted on: Friday, 11 June 2004, 06:00 CDT

Coming soon from a cable provider near you - home telephone service.

In the coming months, Time Warner Cable will offer digital phone service in the Piedmont Triad, competing with traditional telephone providers.

The cable company first began testing its ability to provide phone service in May 2003 in Portland, Maine. Soon after, the company rolled the service out in Raleigh, Charlotte and Kansas City.

The service still isn't widely available in the Piedmont Triad, but it will be soon, said Tim Thompson, Time Warner's vice president and general manager for the project.

Now, Time Warner is testing its digital phone product locally, using employees and select people who are already cable subscribers.

"We want to make sure our testing is very complete before we offer this on a broader basis," Thompson said.

BellSouth spokesman Clifton Metcalf couldn't say what impact Time Warner has had on his company's business in Charlotte and the Triangle.

"We wouldn't know if a customer who disconnects a line chose to go to Time Warner as opposed to another local provider or a wireless company or (if) they simply moved out of state or even out of our territory," Metcalf said. "Obviously every customer is not going to choose BellSouth. Some will choose our competitors. At the same, time we are going to compete for every customer."

Phone and cable companies are increasingly dipping into one another's business. Their goal: sell customers a large bundle of goods, including telephone, Internet and television.

BellSouth, for example, will begin offering DIRECTV package deals to its customers later this year in a direct bid to take business away from Time Warner and other cable companies.

Time Warner's phone service relies on voice over Internet Protocol technology, also called voice over IP. The technology transmits phone calls over closed Internet networks.

The cable company has partnered with MCI to provide its Internet- based phone service.

Customers must have what Thompson calls a "souped up" cable modem for digital phone service to work. But that doesn't mean they'll have to subscribe to digital cable or to Road Runner Internet service, though Time Warner will offer discounts to people who buy a bundle of services.

One telephone must be plugged into that special cable modem. But elsewhere, customers can plug their phones in regular household jacks.

Once Time Warner begins selling digital phone service here, Thompson said it will take about eight days to provide service to each customer. The process will be longer - about 14 days - for customers who switch to Time Warner but keep their old phone number.

Some other voice over IP phone companies have had trouble connecting with emergency dispatch centers or identifying the location of 911 callers. Because of how Time Warner will deliver calls, its digital phone customers won't encounter these problems, Thompson said.

"Time Warner Cable provides fully enhanced 911 capabilities, so that calls dialed to 911 are delivered to the appropriate public safety answering point with the customer's automatic location information, which follows ... regulatory requirements," he said.

Using voice over IP technology, Time Warner's Voice has one distinct advantage over traditional telephone companies. Its monthly service, which will range from about $40 to $45 a month, includes unlimited local and domestic long-distance calling. The base package also includes call waiting, caller ID and call waiting with caller ID. Voice mail costs an extra $3.95 every month.

During power outages, however, Time Warner customers won't be able to use their telephones.

"One of the advantages that we have is our reputation for reliability and it's something that we work very hard to ensure," BellSouth's Metcalf said. "Certainly, communications is a critical service."

Despite this limitation, Thompson said he believes Time Warner's pricing will sway many people to switch phone providers. "I think there's a lot of people willing to take the risk" for the savings, he said.

Thompson wouldn't say how much of the local phone market Time Warner hopes to capture in the Piedmont Triad. But it's clear the cable company believes it can draw customers away from BellSouth and other phone companies.

"I think it's a competitive enough product and the price is competitive enough we're going to see a good penetration percentage," Thompson said.

Contact Amy Joyner at 373-7075 or ajoyner@news-record.com

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