Cable Vendors Team Up to Offer Commercial VoIP Package to Cable

“The biggest issue is that the early adopters spent a year putting together all the pieces and getting their service launched,” said Randy Fuller, senior director of alliances and solutions for Camiant, which helped put the vendor group together. “We think we can cut that down to six months, instead of nine months to a year.”

The vendors’ move comes as many of the nation’s largest cable operators are preparing to aggressively enter the commercial VoIP business. At the Cable Show in Las Vegas two months ago, for instance, Comcast, Time Warner Cable, and Bresnan outlined plans to introduce business voice services in many, if not all, of their cable markets by the end of the year. In doing so, they will be following Cox, Cablevision Systems, Charter, and Canada’s Videotron Telecom, which have also started rolling out customized telephony offerings to small and medium-sized (SMB) businesses.

But the market challenge is whether the vendors’ proposed integrated offering will work for all, or even many, of these cable operators. For example, major cable operators that now buy their voice-enabled cable modems and cable modem termination systems (CMTSs) from Motorola or Cisco might not want to buy into an overall package that attempts to lock them into voice modems and other equipment from a rival vendor like Arris.

The vendors’ integrated offering does cover a wide range of hardware and software products. The elements include: Acme Packet’s Net-Net session border controllers; Arris’ C4 CMTS and Touchstone multi-line embedded multimedia terminal adapter (E-MTA); Broadsoft’s BroadWorks IMS-compliant application server; Camiant’s Multimedia Policy Engine; and Sigma Systems’ Service Management Platform, Commercial SMB Voice Service Package, and Service Management Applications. Pure Integration’s job is to tie all the components together.

Despite the bundling approach, cable operators have some freedom to pick and choose among the commercial VoIP suppliers. So, in some cases, they can switch to rival equipment or software suppliers as long as those vendors also integrate their offerings with the other relevant members of the consortium. “What we're describing is a loosely coupled solution,” Fuller said. “You can swap some people out.” For instance, he noted, “you could swap us out or swap out Broadsoft.”

Even though they're working closely together, the six cable vendors aren’t offering any price breaks on their products to cable operators who opt for the integrated package. But they contend that operators will still save money by reducing their product evaluation, integration, and certification expenses, as well as the time associated with carrying out these functions.

The vendors plan to demonstrate their joint product offering at next week’s CableLabs Summer Conference in Keystone, Colo. Fuller said he and his counterparts at the other firms expect to sign up at least five cable operators for the commercial VoIP bundle over the next year as the industry gets serious about delivering business services. “Cable companies may not have the same market trajectory in the commercial phone business as in the residential phone business,” he said. “But they may not be far away.”

700 MHz Notebook…

House Commerce Committee Chairman John Dingell, D-Mich., plans to put out a statement commenting on the FCC’s 700 MHz rules after the Tuesday’s meeting, a committee spokeswoman said. During the House Commerce Telecom Subcommittee hearing July 24, Dingell praised the Commission’s proposed open access rules, which would allow device portability for a portion of the spectrum. Subcommittee Chairman Ed Markey, D- Mass., also gave a nod to Martin on his proposal. Republicans expressed concern about the risk to auction revenue. Many lawmakers are keeping a close eye on the commission’s meeting. -- AV

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The top priority in the 700 MHz auction should be providing rural America low-cost broadband, Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., told the FCC in a letter released Monday. The FCC’s current plan “opens the door,” but build-out requirements are needed to ensure coverage of rural and urban areas, said the letter sent Friday. Dorgan said the FCC has the “valuable and unique opportunity to improve America’s position as a world technology leader” by crafting 700 MHz auction rules that speed delivery of broadband to more Americans. The senator, like other Democrats, also argued in favor of open access rules, which would allow consumers to take phones from one wireless carrier to another. He supported a wholesaling provision -- which Martin doesn’t support -- that he said would “open the door for a wave of new products and services.” The letter also emphasized that public safety needs a national network that deals with interoperability.

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The National Telecom Cooperative Association called on Senate Commerce Committee leaders to urge FCC consideration of a proposal for the upper 700 MHz band that was offered by U.S. Cellular. The proposal suggests that the 22 MHz of the upper band that the FCC designates for open access requirements be further split into two blocks -- one of 12 MHz and one of 10 MHz. The 12 MHz, which would be distributed according to rural economic area groupings, would have open access requirements and allow package bidding. The other 10 MHz would be distributed according cellular market areas with open access requirements but no package bidding. NCTA and the Rural Telecommunications Group have concerns about the open access concept, the groups told Sens. Daniel Inouye, D-Hawaii, and Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, in a letter sent Monday. But they said their proposed plan “provides the potential for companies of all sizes to compete for additional portions of this unique spectrum.”

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Language proposed recently by Google and Skype isn’t the open access envisioned by the Public Interest Spectrum Coalition, it told Renee Crittendon, an aide to FCC Commissioner Jonathan Adelstein. Under the proposal, the open access licensee “could still refuse to carry VoIP traffic on broadband on the grounds that this was not a ‘commercial mobile radio services-type service’ and that the terms of service precluded use of VoIP,” wrote Harold Feld, senior vice president of the Media Access Project and PISC member.

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As the FCC considers its rules for the 700 MHz band, Verizon disavowed reports that it has accepted FCC Kevin Martin’s open access plan. Responding to FCC Commissioner Robert McDowell, Verizon reiterated twice its opposition to the open access rules. The rules if adopted “would be unsupported by the record, would squarely conflict with recent commission decisions on wireless and other broadband services, and would raise serious legal issues,” John Scott, Verizon Wireless vice president & general counsel for regulatory law, wrote in an ex parte filing. “The commissioner was informed that press reports that Verizon Wireless no longer opposed such proposals were incorrect.” - HFW

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By putting both the 700 MHz item and changes to the automatic-roaming rules on the agenda, FCC Chairman Kevin Martin was trying to “give something to everyone” and “decrease the likelihood of a court challenge to either,” wrote Medley Global Advisors. “The way to sweeten it on 700 MHz is to sweeten it on roaming,” Medley’s Jessica Zufolo told us Monday. “A lot of this is a way to buttress support for the main event, which is the 700 MHz item.”

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FCC Chairman Kevin Martin’s plan for the 700 MHz band to produce a nationwide broadband wireless entrant is likely to fail, according to a research note from Stifel Nicolaus. “We think it is unlikely that a new national player or independent wireless infrastructure emerges,” the firm said. “Nor do we think that other potential national players such as the digital broadcast satellite providers or cable operators will make significant bids. Further, we see no momentum in capital markets to fund new players to take on the incumbents under this set of rules.”

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Access Spectrum, Pegasus and Radiofone Nationwide PCS agreed to turn back their 700 MHz Guard Band B-block licensees if the FCC adopts a band plan to their liking, they told the FCC. Similarly, Access Spectrum, Pegasus and Dominion 700 agreed to have their 700 MHz Guard Band A-block modified, they said.