Vonage Inc., an IP voice service provider that was announced a year ago, has introduced its first service, Vonage Digital Voice, which provides IP phone service through broadband connections.
The service, priced at about $40 a month, provides unlimited minutes local and long-distance of calling in the United States and several features, including voicemail, call waiting, call forwarding, caller ID, and three-way calling. The service also provides a Web interface for customers to manage the features of the service, and to view billing details.
Vonage Digital Voice is being introduced as a second-line service, because of legal constraints. "We don't do first line because we don't do all things that are required," says Carlos Bhola, president, "though we are going to bring CALEA and 911 on hopefully by the end of the year. "
Customers do not have to purchase an IP phone to use the service. "We focus on the hard phone, a physical phone, either an IP phone or regular phone that hooks into an MTA (multimedia terminal adaptor, a home gateway). The service works on any broadband connection, including cable modem and DSL.
Much of the network infrastructure is by Cisco including the home units, which include the Cisco Analog Telephone Adaptor (ATA), the product the company acquired with Komodo.
Vonage has deployed the IPeria SIP-based ActivEdge Enhanced Communications System to deliver the features and applications of the service.
Vonage allows customers to choose the area code of the phone, irrespective of where the consumer is located geographically. The company says that a limited number of 212 area codes are available.
The service has been based on SIP signaling. "We have from day one been an all-SIP provider," says Bhola. "One of the advantage we have as one of the last entrants to the voice-over-IP game is that we were able to jump on new technology. That provided us with a SIP competitive advantage."
Besides Vonage Digital Voice, the company has two other service offerings. The company's platform business provides a complete package of Vonage's technology to service providers, which install and maintain it themselves and offer services under their brands.
The other service uses a powered-by model, in which Vonage manages the network, but the service is branded by the service provider, which could be a cable company or smaller telco. The service provider does all marketing, installation and billing.
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