EarthLink Runs VoIP Over Phone Lines

The VoIP market is one of the fastest growing Internet industries. While it only had less than two percent penetration in 2004, research firm IDC predicts that number will rise to 22.1 percent by 2008. Furthermore, JupiterResearch projects that as many as 20 million US households will subscribe to a VoIP service.

However, there is one issue that plagues the technology: bandwidth. By nature, VoIP both transmits and receives a large amount of data that leaves little wiggle room for other services. If the VoIP data stream does not have enough bandwidth, it can result in a noticeable quality degradation.

Internet service provider EarthLink hopes to change that with its latest offering. Instead of using a ATA box like traditional VoIP companies such as Vonage, EarthLink's service will plug directly into the subscribers traditional phone lines.

"They will experience their phone service in the same way they do from Verizon, SBC, or other traditional phone services," EarthLink's Director of Voice Services Jim Bagnato told BetaNews in an interview. The service launched in San Francisco, Dallas and Seattle last month.

Where EarthLink's service differs is at the phone company's central office. Until the phone call reaches that point, it acts as a POTS, or "plain old telephone service." After that, it is routed through equipment provided by partner Covad.

The call then traverses the Internet through Covad's network before it is passed off to EarthLink's. Bagnato said this is to ensure quality. "We have a lot of control over where the packets going," he said. Thus, the voice signal is free of some of the issues of ATA-based VoIP, such as network traffic and congestion problems.

Also, "you'll still have voice service if the power goes out," Bagnato added. "The voice signal is completely separate from the data signal," which means it's independent from power issues since it runs through traditional phone lines.

EathLink's offering takes advantage of the UNE-L regulation, put into place as part of the 1996 Telecommunications Act that mandates that owners of the telephone lines, or ILECs, must open them up to allow competition. EarthLink says that the telephone companies do not want to offer this service, as it would eliminate revenue from their existing phone and DSL services.

Additionally, VoIP carriers like Vonage and Packet 8 are unable to offer a bundled service with data, which EarthLink will do. Essentially, the ISP would become the customer's phone and ISP provider, the company explained. It expects to be the only provider offering this type of service for quite some time.

However, since EarthLink's service is inherently VoIP, the customer would still benefit from Web-based access and other features that traditional VoIP providers offer their customers.

The DSL offering will use DSL 2+ for data, which would allow for higher data speeds, as well as additional coverage at a further distance from the central office than was possible with previous incarnations of the DSL technology.

EarthLink's "Unlimited Premium" service would be the beneficiary of this, offering 8 MBps downstream speeds, Bagnato said. Along with unlimited calling and long distance, the package would retail for $69.95 USD per month.

While EarthLink will offer enhanced 911 service, Bagnato said it would not offer the choice of phone number like Vonage does. "Given the regulatory environment, and a concern for our customers, only local phone numbers will be allowed."

Bagnato admitted the policy was quite conservative for that of a VoIP provider, but said it was the easiest way at this time to ensure enhanced 911 calling would work properly. He did say, however, that the policy could change in the future.

EarthLink also says the service would support local number portability.

At this time, EarthLink has not developed a rollout plan, but it expects to do so by April of this year. Bagnato said additional localities would come online through the rest of 2006, but the rollout would take several years due to the amount of capital expenditure and other issues.

In any case, the company is excited about the new offering. "All he or she has to do is plug in their phones as they always have and benefit from the savings of VoIP and the industry-leading customer service of EarthLink," Bagnato said.