Source: voipcentral.org

AT&T is giving tough competition to local phone companies. AT&T is planning to tie up its publicized Internet phone service, CallVantage with its mobile phone service for three months on trail basis and provide this service at 14 AT&T wireless stores in Portland, Ore, and central New Jersey.

The company will provide the discount package on store kiosks and direct mail and online ads. AT&T Wireless users can add the CallVantage service for $19.99 monthly. If this trial goes well, the company will provide this service outside Southern US local regions.

After acquiring BellSouth, AT&T gave the company sole control of Cingular Wireless, which allows it to easily target customers in its Cingular stores. AT&T has potential to roll out this service and take the place of Verizon in New Jersey and Qwest and Verizon in Portland.

AT&T’s VoIP service will allow customers to make inexpensive phone calls while traveling through internet. Currently AT&T and Verizon, both are offering this service in their regions.

Stephan Beckert, analyst of TeleGeography said

AT&T is worried that the VoIP service would cannibalize sales of its more profitable land-line phone service in the Midwest.

While analyst of Yankee Group, Berge Ayvazian, said

AT&T can shake up the market by leveraging its fabled brand while using the package to cut monthly turnover of both wireless and CallVantage subscribers.

Image Credit: TMC

Via: USA Today

Source: voipcentral.org

Finally, the Federal Communication Commission(FCC)has approved AT&Ts acquisition of BellSouth for $86 billion after AT&T agreed to compile commissions rulings.

AT&T, the largest provider of both local and long distance telephone services and owner of Cingular Inc, has announced the acquisition of BellSouth on March 5 last year. However, the acquisition was not recognized by FCC considering the Net Neutrality law.

The acquisition was officially approved on December 29, 2006 with two companies agreed to retain the name AT&T and take joint ownership of Cingular Wireless and Yellowpages.com.

With this approval, AT&T would provide its VoIP and other telecom services through Cingular Wireless and meet the FCC compliances.

The eweek reports that AT&T is going to adopt a new marketing strategy to reap the benefits of major acquisition.

Source: voipcentral.org

Taking a step to avoid legal hassle in the wake of FCC (Federal Communication Commission) order to investigate fee structure of Americas broadband service providers, BellSouth Corp has decided to drop a $2.97 monthly fee for its services.

The FCC has sought an explanation from the third largest Internet service provider BellSouth about the new price structure that replaces a surcharge for a government subsidy program that aims at providing communications services to schools, poor households and rural areas.

Before FCC taking any hard step, the broadband service provider has announced drop in the monthly fee that would be in effect from this month. The regulatory body is also enquiring whether the service providers are obeying the current Truth-in-Billing rules.

As discussed earlier, FCC has ordered the broadband service providers to contribute towards Universal Service Fund (USF) last year. However, most of the carriers including Verizon have explained that the new rule is against the customers. Thereafter, the Communication Commission has phased out the USF fee for the telephone companies high-speed Internet service.

It is seen that BellSouth is charging its 3.3millon high-speed internet subscribers $2.97. While the second largest VoIP service provider Verizon is about to impose a new monthly surcharge of $1.20 or $2.70. Before it, Verizon had charged a monthly fee of $1.25 to $2.83 from its customers to contribute USF.

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Source: voipcentral.org

Tektronix Inc made a statement that BellSouth will set up the GeoProbe voice-over-IP or VoIP monitoring solution from Tektronix’ Unified Assurance throughout its IP network.

GeoProbe will provide end-to-end performance monitoring to BellSouth. It will not only enable the rapid troubleshooting but also identifications of service degradations and network problem, which will influence VoIP service quality.

Via: TRADING MARKETS

Source: voipcentral.org

BellSouth will work with VoIP and videophone service provider 8X8 Inc, to provide VoIP phone service to residential users.

The new service will be called BellSouth Digital Phone Service. Martin Chandler, VP (Product Management) in BellSouth said;

With the introduction of BellSouth Digital Phone Service, we are broadening our portfolio of consumer services. This new service is another example of our commitment to providing customers with the greatest choice when it comes to their communications and entertainment services.

With this deal, the BellSouth name adds a premium. The current 8×8’s Packet8 Freedom Unlimited plan that provided unlimited local and long distance calling to the U.S. and Canada at $19.95 a month. However, BellSouth customers will initially have to pay $29.95 monthly for its new avatar BellSouth Digital Phone Service.

This news boosted the normally volatile 8×8 shares that were up 0.5227 (42.84%) to $1.74 in trading Friday, but then they rocketed up $1.28 (73.29%) to $3.02 in after hours trading.

Sources : Local Tech Wire & Light Reading