Bundling aids VOIP success

The demise of SunRocket and the ongoing Vonage saga demonstrate the perils of building a VOIP business, but second-quarter numbers show that tying VOIP to an established broadband business may be the most successful route, reports PC Mag.

Comcast, for example, says it has seen its telephony business skyrocket via its Comcast Digital Voice (CDV) offering. Likewise, Time Warner Cable has also seen its VOIP subscriber base grow, as subscribers add services like VOIP to their established bundle of services.

If anything, the numbers may indicate that VOIP may have a difficult time surviving as a standalone business. VOIP's niche may end up as a value-added service to an existing broadband package.

Internet telephony provider VOIP Logic has introduced the Cortex 2.0, its new Web-based VOIP management platform, says Telappliant.

Designed for easy use by VOIP users themselves, as well as service providers, the programme allows tailoring of the telephony functions that are available to users and has been upgraded with SIP functionality.

"Combined with outsourced VOIP infrastructure or used alone, Cortex makes it dramatically easier for service providers to outsource a full VOIP services deployment," said Micah Singer, chief executive of VOIP Logic.

Arguably, the three most high-profile, full-fledged VOIP services to flash across our radar screen in the last year or two have been SunRocket, Vonage, and 8x8′ s Packet8 service, says ZDNet.

SunRocket has gone, and Vonage, which traded yesterday at an all-time-low of $1.86 a share, has lost money, and its investors are pessimistic.

However, Parent 8x8 announced its quarterly fiscals yesterday, and has made a profit. Total revenue for the first quarter of fiscal 2008 increased to $14.7 million compared to $14.4 million for the previous quarter, and $12.3 million for the same period of fiscal 2007, an increase of 20%.