Net2Phone eyeing wireless play for cable

Hoping to mimic what Sprint is doing for its constellation of big cable operators but on a smaller scale, Net2Phone is now targeting multiple systems operators with a wireless offering.

The company, which last month announced that it will be acquired by IDT, is coming to cable operators with an overlay strategy that looks fairly similar to its wholesale voice-over-IP (VoIP) offering. The CableLine (locally managed version) and VoiceLine (centrally managed) products, which give cable operators an inexpensive entry point into the VoIP market, are being used by Bresnan Communications and Liberty Communications of Puerto Rico, among others. The wireless offer will be similar but also includes a pre-packaged wireless service.

"The overlay itself leverages a lot of the work we've already done in terms of back-office integration," said Mike Pastor, president of Net2Phone Cable Telephony. "Net2phone is currently in the process of negotiating two key vendor relationships. One is with the mobile network operator itself. The second is with the [mobile virtual network enablers]. They have done a lot of the API integration work to the mobile network operator so you can do things like taxation. They also handle things like branded customer care and handset fulfillment. Rather than reinvent the wheel in those three areas, we'll leverage them."

Like its residential wholesale wireline offer, the wireless product is targeted at Tier 2 providers who either are not part of the Sprint/cable alliance--Comcast, Time Warner, Cox and Advance/Newhouse--or are looking for an inexpensive way to complete a quad-play offering.

Because the offering will be based largely on getting voice calls off the PSTN and onto Net2Phone's network, it will open up smaller cable operators to a host of new converged services. The first set of those applications will be Web-centric, such as allowing users to check their voice mail via TV or controlling their DVRs with a wireless handset.

"The next phase is how do you set up some sort of logic within the network that allows you to originate and terminate phone calls regardless of network or device?" Pastor said.

Net2Phone plans to have the wireless product in at least the trial phase by the end of this year.