BRIEF NEWS 03/01/30

Verizon Debuts Flat-Rate Voice Service
If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, then IP voice service providers should be flattered indeed. In a move that very well have been sparked by the revelation that BellSouth is reselling hosted-voice service Vonage (first reported here), Verizon announced a flat-rate telephone service package for consumers.

The $55-per-month service includes unlimited local and long distance dialing, plus any five of what the company calls "call management features, such as voicemail, caller ID, call waiting, three-way calling and speed dialing of eight numbers.. IP voice services Vonage and Packet8 sell a similar service, but without access to 911 or 411, for about $40 per month.

Maura Breen, chief marketing officer for Verizon, said the service was not specifically a response to voice over IP. "What we try to do is take a broad scan of the marketplace to understand what our competitors are doing but also to understand what our customers are telling us they want."

Concerning the BellSouth resale of Vonage services, she says, "I would tell you that right now that Verizon is in Chicago with a voice-over-IP offering on the business side of the house. So all those in the industry are looking at new technologies that they can use to offer products and services. It's not unusual to hear that BellSouth offering something like that."

Telekenex Offering IP Transport for Business
Telekenex, a San Francisco-based switches service provider, has found market traction with a voice-over-IP transport service, using its own proprietary routing protocols, and backed by a heavy emphasis on customer service. The service provider has electronically bonded with the incumbent, SBC, so its own customer service staff can place orders and request service calls from SBC.

Telekenex, whose customers include Disney, uses customers' existing data network, or creates a new data network, to route calls among remote offices. Calls are controlled by a routing engine in each of the company's four POPsSan Francisco, Seattle, New York and Washington, D.C.which works with Cisco Systems Inc. router/gateways at customer premises.

The Telekenex routing protocols can use the Internet or customers' private lineswith premise connections as small as 192-kilobit-per-second frame relay--and have algorithms to reroute in case of traffic congestion.