Qwest sets VoIP access
Qwest Communications International said Monday it
will not charge direct access fees to carriers that complete an
Internet telephone call on its network, making it the first
regional telephone company to welcome broadband competitors on
its wires.
Upstart providers of so-called
"voice-over-Internet-Protocol" services, or VoIP, like Edison,
N.J.-based Vonage, won't be charged the usual per-call access
fee a carrier pays to complete a call from a Vonage customer to
a Qwest customer still on a conventional telephone, Qwest
spokeswoman Kate Varden said.
Instead, Qwest will begin offering wholesale
local access to its network to Internet telephone providers,
whether they be Vonage or the myriad other companies jumping
into Internet telephony, Varden said. Some of those companies
include giants like AT&T, while others are small,
technology-driven startups unknown to most people.
The wholesale service would be cheaper than
paying access fees and allow the provider to purchase a direct
connection to network circuits that would allow them to serve
multiple calls with a single broadband connection, Varden said.
The company didn't collect much from access fees
to VoIP customers anyway, because Internet calling is so cheap
to begin with, and Qwest expects that as more telecommunications
companies begin offering Internet phone service, it can make
money off the new wholesale business, Varden said.
The arrangement is a change from
business-as-usual for a large local phone provider like Qwest.
Usually, regional providers such as Qwest, which
own and control the local phone lines into millions of
businesses and homes in their territories, get to charge other
phone companies a certain amount of money to complete a call on
their network.
Long-distance calls often get charged more than
local calls from other phone companies, and Qwest and other
local incumbent phone companies in turn pay other phone
companies for the right to send calls out on their networks.
Often, companies cut deals to get discount access
to one another on bulk rates.
Internet phone services get around the higher
long-distance rates by using local competitors of Qwest and its
Baby Bell brethren to connect all their calls as local calls,
since it doesn't matter how far a call travels on the Internet.
Vonage, considered the largest Internet phone
provider with 145,000 customers nationwide, welcomed the news.
"We think it's a great step for the industry,"
Vonage spokeswoman Brooke Schulz said. "We also think we would
even consider purchasing their services."
Qwest became the first major telephone company to
offer Internet phone services with a January rollout of limited
service to 200 Minnesota customers. It expects to offer fuller
service throughout its 14-state region later this year, Varden
said.
