A conversation with Callipso's Deb Lenart

Founded in 1996 originally as a regional ISP, Callipso has transformed itself into an enhanced IP carriers’ carrier, gaining its greatest traction with the prepaid card sector. However, as the marketing for voice-over-IP services grows, the company is expanding to target Tier-1 carriers as well as cable operators. President and CEO Deb Lenart, who came to Callipso last year after serving as president and CEO of the ill-fated Eziaz, recently spoke with Telephony’s Vince Vittore about the future of IP services and new markets.

On avoiding becoming a “dumb pipe” provider: The network has become the core value, but strategy is really evolving up the IP value chain. What started out as just providing ‘skinny minutes’ has evolved into something more robust. To the service providers, I look like a big hosting platform. We want to be the 'Intel inside' for voice-over-IP.

On the hottest new services: The prepay side is really growing into areas that weren’t expected. We’re launching things like conferencing on a prepay platform. Right now, only 20% of conferencing is on-demand. It’s going to go up 80% because you can do so much more. The service provider markets are starting to see the value in this. We’re launching with a lot of capability already built in. We already have IVR functionality in eight languages, for example.

On pure voice plays: We’re going to go to the IP PBX side, but it will be more Centrex as opposed to hosted PBX. I’m going to take this to the CLEC market. IP service is all we do, and I know we do it well. We’ve got softswitch POP locations all over the country.

On vendor choices: We use Lucent for the IP gateways and Sonus for the switching. They bring enhanced SS7 capabilities. We will begin peering soon [using new capabilities built into the Sonus platform]. Sonus has delivered on that. I’d like the price to be lower, but they’ve delivered well.

On new partnerships: We’re doing a lot of relationship work right now. For example, Poker.com is looking at virtual gaming tables where you can talk to the people you’re playing with. We’re working with Microsoft to more fully enable voice on the XBox. It’s all about full enablement of your broadband service. You can literally give away calls for free in that situation. Now is the time, though, to get the relationships in place.

On supporting new VoIP retailers: I’m not a broadband provider. That’s not the business I want to be in. The cable operator is a good example. The cable operator is going to own the relationship. I don’t want to own the customer relationship. I operate as a big network operations center, as opposed to an end application provider.