"Advertised" U.S. Broadband Speeds and "Experienced" Speeds Quite Closely Related, Ookla Finds

Despite the general carping one often hears about how U.S. broadband access speeds are woefully out of touch with "advertised" speeds, Ookla, the Internet access measurement service considered by many to be the most accurate, finds that "advertised" and "experienced" speeds are very close, especially considering that some amount of signaling overhead (Ookla says 10 percent to 20 percent is typical) is necessary in all cases.

As of October 3, 2010, the Ookla worldwide 'Household Promise Index" shows that globally, providers are delivering 87.25 percent of promised service speeds, with the APEC (Russia, Canada, United States, Australia) at 85.67 percent, the European Union at 84.83 percent, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development at 83.24 percent and the G8 (France, Germany, Italy, Japan, United Kingdom, United States, Canada and Russia) at 80.28 percent.

In addition, the top five countries are Republic of Moldova (110.26 percent), Lithuania (99.13 percent), Russia (98.86 percent), Slovakia (98.74 percent) and Ukraine (97.80 percent), with the United States at number 11 (93.00 percent).

As of October 3, 2010, Ookla's "House Value Index" shows the global cost of broadband at $4.36 per Mbps, with the top five countries in terms of "Relative Cost of Broadband" being Luxembourg, United Kingdom, Sweden, Norway and Denmark — the United States ranked 12th (out of 26 countries) at 1.21 percent of gross domestic product per capita or $46.75/month.

Comparing several U.S. States shows South Dakota ranks first at $2.91 USD per Mbps, New York ($4.22) ranks 8th, Washington State ($5.44) ranks 15th and California ($5.80) ranks 19th, with Alaska ranked 51st at $16.77 per Mbps.

The United States ranks 20th in cost per Mbps (out of 26 countries total), but ranks 15th when taking into account gross domestic product per capita, Ookla says.

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Global Broadband and Video Revenue to Grow Robustly

Spending on wired and mobile Internet access will rise from $228 billion in 2009 to $351 billion in 2014, PriceWaterhouseCoopers now predicts, representing growth of about 54 percent. Video subscriptions will grow as well.

The global television subscription and license fee market will increase from $185.9 billion in 2009 to $258.1 billion in 2014, a compount annual growth rate of 6.8 per cent. This will outpace TV advertising, which will grow at a CAGR of 5.7 per cent.

The biggest component of this market is subscription spending and this will increase at 7.5 per cent CAGR to $210.8 billion in 2014. Asia Pacific will be the fastest-growing region with a 10 per cent compund annual increase rising to $47.1 billion in 2014 from $29.2 billion in 2009.

Total global spending on consumer magazines fell by 10.6 percent in 2009, PwC says. The firm projects an additional 2.7 per cent decrease in 2010, a flat market in 2011, and modest growth during 2012–14. As a result, spending will total $74 billion in 2014, up 0.7 percent compounded annually from $71.5 billion in 2009.

Electronic educational books will grow at a CAGR of 36.5 per cent globally throughout the forecast period yet will still only account for less than six per cent of global spend on educational books in 2014.

As a whole, the media and entertainment market will grow by five percent compounded annually for the entire forecast period to 2014 reaching $1.7 trillion, up from $1.3 trillion in 2009. The fastest-growing region throughout the forecast period is Latin America growing at 8.8 per cent compound annual rate during the next five years to $77 billion in 2014.

Asia Pacific is next at 6.4 per cent CAR through to 2014 to US$475 billion. Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) follows at 4.6 per cent to US$581 billion in 2014. The largest, but slowest growing market is North America growing at 3.9 per cent CAR taking it from $460 billion in 2009 to $558 billion in 2014.

"Digital Divide" is Closing

Policy advocates and policymakers have worried about a "digital divide" in U.S. Internet usage, as much as global policymakers have worried about the difference between communications use in developed and developing regions.

But a new study by eMarketer suggests that the U.S. digital divide is closing fairly rapidly. By 2014, in four years, Internet usage rates by Americans of black ancestry will just about equal rates of U.S. "whites" today, while Hispanic American use of the Internet will rise to within six percentage points of the current U.S. average usage by "white" Americans.

That is not to say rates will be identical, but the point is that almost nobody thinks "white" Americans generally are victims of a "digital divide" today, though there are more issues in rural or isolated parts of the country. In fact, most of the non-adoption factors now are of a "demand" sort rather than a "supply" sort. In other words, most people who want broadband already buy it.

If by 2015 Americans of "black" or "Hispanic" heritage have those same rates, the significance of the "divide" should be largely moot. That is not to say the issue is completely moot, but closing the last percentage or two of gap in any endeavor always is a matter of effort and reward. And since the primary issue these days is demand, not supply, some circumspection might be in order, in terms of the amount of effort expended, compared to the potential benefits. The markets, and consumers, seem to be doing a relatively good job, unaided, in terms of closing the digital divide.

Suddenlink Launches 107 Mbps Broadband Access Service

Suddenlink, an operator of rural and suburban cable TV systems, says it has started offering residential customers in several, suburban-Austin communities (Georgetown, Pflugerville, and Leander) its new “High Speed Internet MAX 107.0” service, featuring a download speed up to 107 megabits per second (Mbps) and an upload speed up to 5 Mbps.

The MAX 107.0 service is the result of “Project Imagine,” a new Suddenlink program that calls for approximately $350 million of capital investments nationwide through 2012, above and beyond the company’s traditional capital spending levels.

Through “Project Imagine,” the company aims to expand to substantially all Suddenlink communities: video-on-demand service; the capability for up to 200 high-definition (HD) TV channels; and industry-leading DOCSIS 3.0 technology, which enables Internet download speeds of 20, 50, and more than 100 Mbps.

Suddenlink is preparing to launch either MAX 107.0 or MAX 50.0 Internet service in a number of other communities this year, with details to be announced later. MAX 50.0 service will feature a download speed of up to 50 Mbps.

That will give Suddenlink bragging rights in the speed wars. What remains unclear, as has been the case for other providers offering 50 Mbps service, is how many customers actually will buy the fastest speeds, rather than lower-speed and medium-speed services.

So far, no U.S. provider of access at speeds ranging from 50 Mbps to 100 Mbps has been willing to say, in public, what percentage of customers buy such plans, or even the actual number of customers who buy. One suspects that is because relatively few consumers actually think they need such speeds, or that the value-price relationship is better than that of the medium-speed services.

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Ofcom Wants Better Consumer Information About Broadband Access Speeds

Ofcom, the U.K. communications regulator, is not happy with the accuracy of information provided consumers about their real-world broadband access services, and wants to revise the reporting process so better information is provided.

Mystery shoppers commissioned by Ofcom have found that 15 percent of the time, "potential customers" were not given an estimate of their access line speed, and 42 percent were only given one after prompting the sales agent near the end of the sales process.

The accuracy of the information proved to vary. In some cases, users were given double the line speed of another provider for the same line and technology, and sometimes received different answers over the phone when compared with the website of the same service provider. The majority of line speeds also did not match (within 1Mbps) the speeds given by the BT Wholesale line checker.

There is no question but that "best effort" broadband services are difficult to accurately predict or describe. It is true that users will sometimes experience bursts that correspond with the advertised "up to" speed. Most of the time, actual experienced sustained rates are lower, because of contention ratios and actual end user volume.

So Ofcom proposes that ISP's provide speed estimates based on line length, line capacitance and line attenuation, all measures that will provide a better approximation of typical download speeds.

Ofcom also wants to ensure that shoppers are given this information early in the sale process, particularly before payment information or a request for service is made.

Ofcom also seek to ensure that factors that affect broadband speed are explained. Specifically, Ofcom wants to ensure that shoppers are told how network capacity, congestion on the Internet and traffic management policies could affect performance. Consumers also should be told that actual throughput speeds will be lower than advertised or theoretical line speeds.

U.K. consumers already have the right to be moved to a cheaper, lower speed option when the plan they bought does not measure up. In cases where their is but one tier of service, Ofcom wants to allow consumers to leave their contracts without penalty.

Ofcom apparently will try to get such changes made voluntary. If changes aren't agreed to, or implemented, a regulatory review may occur, which could lead to formal regulation.

Such policies are not unreasonable consumer protection efforts. The problem is that formal guarantees are next to impossible so long as connections operate on a "best effort" basis.

Even on a quality-assured connection, which would have to be based on packet prioritization policies, throughput will vary throughout the day, based on overall contention for network resources, though far less than is the case on a "best effort" connection.

To closely match expected routine performance with an advertised top speed will require packet prioritization.

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23% of U.S. Business Sites Now are Fiber-Served

What percentage of U.S. business locations would you suggest now have optical fiber connections available to them? According to Vertical Systems Group, just 23 percent of U.S. sites and 15 percent of sites in Europe have optical access.


While most large enterprise locations in the United States and Europe are fiber-connected, small and medium business sites generally are underserved with fiber from any service provider.


"The good news is that overall accessibility to business fiber has more than doubled within the past five years," says Rosemary Cochran, Vertical Systems Group principal.


The challenge ahead is to extend fiber connectivity to remote business locations. Of course, not all smaller business locations need the fiber that typically supports gigabit-per-second bandwidth. Given that 1.544 Mbps connections are the mainstay for most smaller and even many mid-sized businesses, many customers might be quite satisfied with speeds in the tens of megabits per second.

NARUC Calls for Controls on "Unreasonable" Packet Discrimination, Not "All" Packet Discrimination

The National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners has called for protecting “the right of all Internet users, including broadband wireline, wireless, cable modem, and application-based users, to have access to and the use of the Internet that is unrestricted as to viewpoint and that is provided without unreasonable discrimination as to lawful choice of content.”

The key language there is "unreasonable" discrimination. NARUC is not calling for network neutrality rules that ban "all" packet discrimination.  The problem is that some traffic types are  "latency sensitive" and can suffer at times unless packet discrimination mechanisms are used. Applications such as video, gaming and VoIP would suffer, at times of peak congestion, without priority mechanisms that users themselves may wish to have in place.

NARUC therefore has asked that policymakers and regulators keep in mind that "unreasonable restrictions or unreasonable discrimination" be areas of protection, not "all" forms of packet discrimination.

NARUC also asks for rules and regulations that will give providers incentive for continual innovation and a fair return on their investment, without jeopardizing consumer access to, and use of, affordable and reliable broadband services.

Discrimination that is solely, or primarily intended,  to protect business advantages, is an area of valid concern for policymarkers. But the Internet has changed. It is a network increasingly used to support isochronous applications (real-time applications) that are highly susceptible to degradation from latency, for example.
NARUC's position will seem to many a well-reasoned and balanced approach.

http://www.digitalsociety.org/2010/02/naruc-resolution-on-net-neutrality/

To Solve the "Broadband Access" Problem, You Have to Know What Causes It

Solving the problem "people who don't use broadband access at home" hinges on the actual barrier to usage. Some people don't use the Internet; some don't use computers; some are unwillingness to pay current subscription prices while others would buy but literally have no physical access at their remote locations.

All too often the problem is viewed uni-dimensionally, as though lack of supply is the key problem. But there is increasingly acknowledgement that there are other barriers to surmount, such as users who would like to use the Internet, and could afford it, but who do not own PCs, and are unlikely to buy one.

The U.K. government believes "lack of PCs" is among the barriers, and now plans to give away
270,000 low-income families with free laptops and broadband access, as part of its £300 million broadband stimulation program.

Since the fall of 2008 U.K. officials have been training "well off" families about the value of broadband for users who can afford to buy broadband, but do not see the value.

The new inititiative aims to address a different problem: people who would use the Internet and see its value, but cannot afford the PC or recurring cost of a connection.

The program is to be included in the Children, Schools and Families Bill for 2009/2010, which is yet to be debated in the House of Commons. The legislation aims to ensure that all families with children aged between seven and 14 will be able to apply for a grant to buy a computer and broadband connection.

A Look at Consumer Satisfaction with Broadband

One can get a good argument about whether consumer satisfaction with any communications or entertainment video service is strongly related to customer loyalty.

The conventional wisdom is that "happy" customers are "loyal" customers, but that always has been tough to demonstrate in the consumer communications market.

Churn rates for "satisfied" customers often do not seem all that different from the behavior of demonstrably "unhappy" customers, though few would argue there is no relationship between "satisfaction" and "loyalty."

Some new analysis by Parks Associates illustrates the issue. As it turns out, "satisfaction" with various broadband access services is relatively comparable across platforms and networks. Fiber to the home fares better, satellite broadband and fixed broadband a bit worse than either cable modem service or digital subscriber line.

But the differences are not quite as pronounced as one might think. With cable modem and DSL service as the benchmark, FTTH does a bit better and wireless a bit worse. But FTTH, while "above average," and wireless "a bit below average," are fairly close to the baseline.

At the margin, FTTH customers are a bit more happy, wireless customers a bit less happy. But the link between satisfaction and churn is not precise, nor linear. Other surveys tend to show that overall consumer satisfaction with most entertainment video, mobile and fixed line services is reasonable, but not typically among the products consumers routinely say they are most happy with.

Grumbling and grousing just comes with the territory, it seems.

EU Approves UK Broadband Deregulation

The European Union Telecoms Commission has approved an Ofcom proposal to deregulate the U.K. broadband market UK broadband market where there are four or more actual or potential providers serving areas with more than 10,000 homes and businesses.

In practice, that means deregulation for areas covering around 65 percent of all homes and businesses.

VoIP, Broadband Growth is Slowing

One of the tentative conclusions we might reach from Comcast's fourth-quarter results is that the broadband access market is approaching a saturation point, with slowing net additions. Comcast added about 331,000 broadband subscribers in the three months ending Dec. 31, 2007, down 26 percent from the 450,000 subscribers it added in the third quarter. That's congruent with net adds from telcos as well, and has perhaps a little to do with the economy and slower housing starts. But mostly it is simply that we are approaching the point where nearly every potential customer for broadband already has become one.

VoIP net adds are slowing as well, again confirming a broader trend seen in the consuemr segment of the VoIP business overall. Basically, significant numbers of people who are persuaded VoIP makes sense for them right now have become customers.

After adding 662,000 new subscribers in the third quarter, Comcast’s total net new voice additions dropped to 604,000 in the fourth quarter. None of this is unexpected.

Broadband Adoption: Under Par for the Course

Since broadband first became widely available to consumers in the late 1990s, adoption has hit the
halfway point faster than most other information and communication technologies.

It took 18 years for the personal computer to be used by 50 percent of Americans at home and 18 years for color TV to reach half of homes.

Mobile phone penetration took 15 years to reach the "half of homes" point. It took 14 years for the video cassette recorder, and 10 and one half years for the compact disc player to reach the same level of penetration.

It has taken about 10 years for broadband to reach 50 percent of homes. We can argue about the price of broadband, the definition of broadband, the quality or terms of service under which broadband can be purchased.

But it continues to surprise me that some observers still think there is some sort of crisis or problem here. Over the last year bandwidths have been leaping, not just incrementally increasing. There's more third generation wireless access, more WiMAX, more Wi-Fi. With a new SpaceWay satellite in orbit, there's much more satellite broadband capacity coming online as well.

And the last time I checked, some 98 percent of U.S. homes had access to at least one wireline broadband provider, and depending on where the location is, one or two satellite providers. Again, depending on location, users have access to one to three broadband mobile networks as well.

Few countries save Japan have prices-per-megabit lower than U.S. consumers do. By all means let us solve problems. But it doesn't do much good to keep trying to "solve" problems that already are in the process of being fixed.

And by any historical standard broadband access is a product being adopted by U.S. consumers at a faster rate than other highly-popular innovations have. In fact, one would be hard pressed to name another popular innovation that has penetrated the market so quickly.

Price Per Megabit: Japan and France Lead

When observers talk about places where broadband access is both fast and affordable, Japan is certain to come up. Maybe they should talk about France. As this chart created by the Wall Street Journal shows, French users can buy broadband at prices per megabit that are quite close to what users in Japan are able to do.

Also, despite all the whining about how far behind the rest of the world the U.S. providers are, it doesn't really appear such sentiments necessarily are based in fact. Over the last year, cable and telephone companies have been boosting capacity while holding prices steady. And that provides a much better "price per megabit" relationship.

AOL to Cleave Access from Ads

So it looks as though AOL will be split, separating out the Internet access business from the emerging advertising business. The thinking is that it will be easier to do something with each of the assets that isn't so easy right now. Presumably a buyer such as Google might want to pick up AOL's portal for the ad business.

But what can be done with the access assets? Even though AOL lost 3.8 million subscribers in 2007, it still has something on the order of 9.3 million U.S. subscribers.

EarthLink has something of a similar problem. It has a declining customer base but still has 4.2 million access customers.

The issue is what sort of buyer might exist for the Internet access customers AOL and EarthLink now are serving. Most of them are dial-up customers and are likely prospects for broadband upgrades. But the customer base is scattered all over the U.S. market.

So any potential acquirer would want a ubiquitous broadband access footprint (cable modem, wireless or Digital Subscriber Line). Only the leading wireless providers have any real shot at national coverage. Verizon, at&t or Comcast would have immediate coverage issues. Smaller ISPs might want to buy, but can't raise the money.

Does anybody have a rational business plan for rolling up the EarthLink and AOL access bases? Not one we've heard so far, even assuming all the other assets are cleanly separated.

Verizon, at&t Take Different Approaches to Bandwidth Caps

For an industry that in decades past has tended to move in lockstep, it is refreshing to see an ever-increasing divergence in strategies and marketing positions. Consider the matter of bandwidth caps and content filtering.

at&t has decided to filter non-authorized content on its broadband access networks. The move is an attempt to reduce the peer-to-peer bandwidth load on its networks.

Verizon, on the other hand, doesn't want to do so and says it will not. Many policy advocates will cheer that stance.

One might credit Verizon's decision to move to a fiber-to-home network for that laudable move. Simply, Verizon has a lot more headroom than at&t will to support today's heavy users, and ultimately, heavier use by nearly all users as more video moves to Internet delivery.

Beyond the policy stance differences, and the customer goodwill Verizon will garner, the notable difference stems from fundamental decisions each carrier has made. Verizon made a risky bet in the face of nearly-universal investor opposition. at&t took a less-risky path that was rewarded by investors.

But each of those decisions now has repercussions in other areas where technology now conditions the marketing decisions each company can make. I've said it before and will say it again: Verizon did the right thing sticking to its FiOS program, in the face of intense financial community pressure.

In the years to come, that technology and financial decision is going to give Verizon many options other contestants may not have.

Time of Day Pricing

As exemplified by this chart showing how utilities price usage by time to day to discourage use during periods of peak load, one theoretically could price broadband access, voice or virtually any other communications good based on time of day or day of week. Long distance pricing used to do so, in fact.

Of course, what we now know is that users vastly prefer flat rates, often because it is a way to avoid steep "overage" charges, and even when the actual price for usage is much higher than one might think. Based on what one did in a single billing period, for example, average prices for wireless calling might range from two cents a minute to eight cents or more. When one is on vacation, per-minute pricing might be as high as 20 to 25 cents a minute for the actual minutes used.

Most U.S. consumers probably don't worry about "per minute" pricing for domestic calling. They pay a flat rate for a certain number of minutes in a bucket, and that's about as far as one normally thinks about the matter.

Not so long ago, though, wireless calling and wired network calling routinely used time of day pricing. In principle, broadband access could be priced the same way. It is doubtful the potential benefits are worth the effort. Customers clearly prefer buckets and flat rate pricing. Also, there are costs associated with tracking usage so closely, so in most cases it might not be worth the effort.

The other issue is that pricing by the value of an application makes more sense than tracking raw bandwidth usage. The value of a text message or voice bit is quite high on a price-per-bit basis. On the other hand, the value of high-quality video video or audio bits is not determined so much by price-per-bit as by quality of the streams.

One movie might be "worth" the $3 or $4 a user pays for the stream. But the value will be determined by the quality of the delivered images. Two hours of continuous talking might be valued just as highly, even if the perceived price is $2.40 (two cents a minute for 120 minutes).

Time of day pricing also arguably makes less sense for broadband because network load tends to balance out, if one includes business broadband and consumer broadband load. Business load is high from 8 a.m. until perhaps 4 p.m. while consumer usage peaks in the evening. Average load therefore tends to balance on any given network from 8 a.m. to 11 p.m. local time, though usage obviously is lighter from midnight to 6 a.m.

Usage-Based Pricing Not Unusual

At some point, as more Internet service providers begin to adopt "buckets" of use as the dominant subscription model, there will be outcries about whether this is fair, since most users in the U.S. market have come to expect flat fee pricing for "unlimited" use.

That has not been the dominant model in Europe, for example, and though there might be some incremental impact in usage patterns, I don't think anybody would argue that metered usage is terribly and inherently unfriendly.

It also is highly unlikely to the point of implausibility that ISPs in the U.S. market will move to a strict metered usage regime. The reason is simply that the objective--matching consumption to the cost of providing access--can be addressed more simply and palatably by using the "bucket" model, much as mobile calling or texting plans can be purchased based on expected usage.

In that regard, it might be helpful to recall that consumer pricing has used any number of models. Pay-as-you-go had been the dominant packaging and pricing model for all long distance plans, mobile and fixed, until at&t introduced "Digital One Rate." Local calling, on the other hand, has used a "fixed fee, all you can eat" model.

Cable TV has used a mixed model: essentially "flat fee, all you can eat" for ad-supported video and movie channels, but usage-based pricing for on-demand pricing.

The model used for Internet access started at the other end of the continuum: unlimited use (subject to some acceptable use policies) for a flat fee. Only recently have some voice providers moved to that model.

Of late, though, there has been a bigger move to "buckets" that match usage to price. There's no particular reason to believe a move in that direction will affect the vast majority of users. Most customers have usage patterns that fall within a reasonable zone, and won't, in practice, notice anything different even if usage-based pricing becomes more prevalent.

Providers obviously will want to minimize disruption, and there's no question but that lower prices have driven high demand. Nobody will want to jeopardize their market share by raising prices for most customers other than the small percentage who consume a disproportionate share of bandwidth.

Over time, more attention will have to be paid to the relationship between retail pricing and usage as video starts to change usage patterns, though.

Test of Tiered Pricing for Broadband Access

Time Warner Cable is testing usage-based broadband access pricing, according to Broadbandreports.com. The move is hardly surprising. Most Internet service providers report that a fraction of all users, about five percent or so, use over half of all access bandwidth.

The Time Warner test presumably aims to discover how such usage can be monitored by end users themselves, how scalable the process might be, and possibly whether such heavy users will upgrade to higher-usage plans or flee to another provider.

Over time, it seems inevitable that heavier users will find themselves facing universal caps on their usage and the ability to buy plans that support their higher usage levels.

Broadandreports.com says the test will involve new customers in the Beaumont market, not existing customers. Those users will be placed on metered billing plans where overage charges will apply, and provided a web site where they can track their usage and upgrade, if required.

In principle, the approach is akin to how mobile pricing plans now are structured, where users can choose higher usage or lower usage plans for voice and text usage.

One way or the other, as video becomes a bigger part of overall broadband usage, it is inevitable that usage-based plans supplant current "all you can eat" plans. Video is the reason.

Video consumes vastly more bandwidth than Web surfing, email or voice, requiring across the board capacity increases in the network backbone and access networks. That obviously costs money, and those costs will have to be recovered.

Usage-based pricing is coming because it has to.

XO Launches IP Flex

XO Communications has launched XO IP Flex, a new converged IP services bundle that upgrades and replaces XOptions Flex, XO’s VoIP services bundle. The new service positions XO as a better provider of voice and data for larger businesses, and also packages voice services as a broadband access feature.

There are a couple noteworthy elements here. The offering is Ethernet-based, and so moves beyond the bandwidth formats dictated by the T1 and SONET frameworks. An organization can buy bandwidth between 1.5 and 45 Mbps, eliminating the abrupt cost and bandwidth jump between a couple of T1s and a DS-3.

Also, the offering positions the new product as "Ethernet access" and voice as an included application. Some will argue this is merely a marketing position, but it is an important shift in positions.

XO IP Flex extends XO’s VoIP services to larger business customers by offering new higher-speed bandwidth options including 4.5 Mbps and 10 Mbps. XO IP Flex works with existing phone systems.

The service eliminates pricing based on the number of voice lines. Unlike other approaches to IP pricing that still are based on traditional TDM services pricing models, XO’s bandwidth-based pricing acknowledges that voice is simply another application on the IP port and offers rates based on the size of the port, not on the number of voice lines.

Standard IP Flex features include:

* Voicemail, caller ID, call waiting, call forward, three-way calling, and one toll free number
* Dedicated Internet Access with Dynamic Bandwidth Allocation
* Unlimited local calling
* Unlimited site-to-site calling for multi-location customers with IP Flex, IP Flex with VPN and XO SIP locations
* Long distance calling with choice of calling plans
* Online Feature Management through the XO Business Center
* Optional features, including Auto Attendant, Call Center, Account Codes and Voice Virtual Private Network.

The company also has launched XO SIP, which delivers converged voice and data services to businesses with IP-PBX systems over a single, high-speed IP connection. XO SIP is a fully integrated solution designed to support the needs of businesses with the most demanding voice and data applications at single locations or multiple locations nationwide.

Session Initiation Protocol uses a native IP-based facility to manage all traffic between a customer’s IP-PBX system, the XO IP network, and the Public Switched Telephone Network. The service provides greater efficiencies by eliminating the need for businesses to maintain multiple access facilities for voice and data services and eliminates the need for bandwidth-consuming protocol conversions, thereby, simplifying the overall deployment and management of customers’ enterprise IP telephony services.

XO SIP includes a broad range of bandwidth options to maintain optimal network performance. XO SIP features include:

* Dedicated Internet Access with Dynamic Bandwidth Allocation
* Unlimited local calling
* Unlimited site-to-site calling for multi-location customers with IP Flex, IP Flex with VPN and XO SIP locations
* Long distance calling with choice of calling plans
* Optional Voice Compression
* Online Feature Management through the XO Business Center

XO SIP is currently interoperable with Avaya IP Office, Cisco Call Manager, Cisco Call Manager Express and Digium Asterisk Appliance. XO SIP also utilizes the BroadSoft BroadWorks VoIP platform to provide customers additional advanced IP-PBX features, including auto attendant, call center and voice VPN.

Customers simply select an IP port speed from 1.5 to 45 Mbps, a calling plan and any additional features. Because voice is just another application on the IP port, customers pay nothing for incremental lines or voice channels provisioned within the port speed they have with their service. The bandwidth-based pricing is now being offered with XO IP Flex, XO IP Flex with VPN and XO SIP plans.

Verizon Launches 7 Mbps Service

Verizon has launched a new 7 Mbps broadband access service availabe in about 400 Verizon-served communities. Prices begin at $39.99 for contract plans. Verizon will expand the program into more communities throughout the year.