NextWeb, a large fixed-wireless business ISP based in California, is launching VoIP services using the wholesale VoIP service of CommPartners, a provider of privately branded, VoIP services and IP-to-PSTN interconnection carrier services. NextWeb has an extensive pre-WiMAX network that can reach 500,000 SMBs in northern and southern California. The VoIP service was to finish beta testing and be rolled out to NextWeb coverage areas last month. The CommPartners wholesale service is a hosted PBX replacement service that includes a wide range of features, particularly business features, such as autoattendant, attendant console and conferencing.
Vonage Holdings Corp. is reselling its broadband phone service through Campus TeleVideo, a private cable operator that focuses solely on the college and university markets. The partnership already has given Vonage access to schools including UCLA, Penn State University, University of Georgia and Rutgers University. Vonage says it is offering Campus TeleVideo's subscribers unlimited local and long-distance calling throughout the United States and Canada for a flat rate. Subscribers will be able to choose from all of Vonage's calling plans, and get features including Web-based voice mail, area code selection and online account management.
Blue Wireless & Data Inc. will sell VoIP services under a joint venture with Interlink Global Corp. to Blue Wireless customers in the greater Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex, where it owns 8,900 square miles of high-speed wireless Internet networks. The agreement calls for Blue Wireless to provide wireless and wired systems with broad coverage and broadband connectivity as required. Blue Wireless also will provide marketing and sales in its current coverage area which presently reaches approximately 510,000 households across North Texas, as well as Tier 1 technical support and installation services.
Venturing into low-bit-rate VoIP for developing countries, Talkfree Telecom Inc. has announced a wholesale service aimed at thirdworld markets where access to the Internet is largely over dialup phone lines with bit rates below 64kbps. Talkfree is assembling resellers in developing territories and already has signed agreements in Cambodia, Vietnam, Egypt and Haiti. Competitors that already serve this market include Go2Call, likely the market leader, with Dialpad Communications Inc. and Net2Phone also offering services. Resellers will be able to put their own brands on their Web sites and on the Talkfree softphone.
VoIP wholesaler Net2Phone Inc. has signed five-year contracts with two broadband service providers, as well as a new master services agreement with the National Cable Television Cooperative Inc. (NCTC). Net2Phone's newest customers - Communications Services and the City of Tifton, Ga. Telecommunications Municipal Cable and Broadband System (CityNet) - plan to offer Net2Phone VoiceLine broadband telephony service to subscribers. Meanwhile, the agreement with NCTC is an affinity marketing deal. Net2Phone has been a platinum vendor of VoIP services to the NCTC, a purchasing group representing more than 1,100 U.S. cable operators. Net2Phone will offer NCTC's members ways to market telephony services to their end users while NCTC members maintain ownership of their telephony subscribers and brand.
| Links |
Blue Wireless & Data Inc. www.bluewirelessdata.com |
