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Level3 Aids Comcast with Digital Voice Rollout
[July 28, 2005]

Level3 Aids Comcast with Digital Voice Rollout


BY JOHANNE TORRES
TMCnet VoIP Minute Watch Columnist
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Comcast teamed up with Level3 Communications, the companies announced today. According to the companies' agreement, Level3 will now provide Comcast with underlying backbone support for the rollout of its new voice service offering, Comcast Digital Voice, which enables voice communications using Internet protocol.



The cable operator plans to expand the services across the US, allowing the new Internet telephony services be deployed with Level 3’s backbone support travel which along a privately managed network. This will extend the capability of Comcast’s existing private broadband network, allowing the IP-based voice service to work even away from non-facilities-based VoIP service providers.

“Level 3 continues to be an important partner and a company that we rely on to provide the infrastructure we need to offer reliable and innovative home phone services to our customers,” explained Catherine Avgiris, senior vice president, finance and administration of Comcast Voice Services. “Level 3 is widely recognized as a leading enabler of advanced voice services and delivers the broad national coverage and demanding performance standards we require to continue delivering valuable products and services.”


“We’re pleased that Comcast has chosen Level 3 to provide backbone support for their Comcast Digital Voice rollout,” said Sureel Choksi, executive vice president of Services for Level 3. “We believe the market is poised for rapid adoption of innovative voice services and look forward to further supporting Comcast as it adds IP-based phone service to its leading suite of cable, entertainment and communications products and services.”

Level3 made news last month when the company announced that it expanded its E911 platform for VoIP services to assist customers with FCC’s compliance. The agency mandated that all VoIP providers interconnected to the public switched telephone network must provide E911 with their consumer VoIP offerings by the end of the summer.

Specifically, the company implemented a new emergency-calling network system for so-called nomadic VoIP users, and plans to extend its E911 coverage footprint to more than 70 percent of the country by the end of this year. Additionally, Level 3 plans to offer E-911 functionality through its (3)VoIP Local Inbound service, which enables customers to purchase inbound local, IP-based calling services in selected areas throughout the United States.

The company also left customers hanging when it decided to drop its (3)Tone Business product, Level 3’s wholesale hosted VoIP service earlier this year. Nuvio Corporation picked up a few of those clients when it announced its NuvioCentrex service, the company’s hosted IP Voice system this February. Nuvio announced a special package to resellers of the (3)Tone Business, which includes the same terms and conditions granted by Level3, along with one month’s free service for customers converting to the NuvioCentrex platform.

Level 3 Communications
http://www.level3.com
Comcast
http://www.comcast.com
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Johanne Torres is contributing editor for TMCnet. To see more articles by Johanne Torres, please visit:

http://www.tmcnet.com/tmcnet/columnists/columnist.aspx?id=100006&nm=Johanne%
20Torres


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