Voice over DSL comes of age: CopperCom lands equipment deal with Picus

While DSL deployments have become commonplace, voice-over-DSL technology still has been held up in the developmental and testing phases. But Norfolk,Va.-based competitive local exchange carrier Picus Communications will announce this week its rollout of CopperCom's voice-over-DSL solution, CopperComplete DSL.

The deal could be worth $24 million over the first year and involves up to 6 million voice lines over three years. Picus plans to begin installation of the CopperCom gateway and the CopperCom MXR by the end of September. The CLEC will deploy the equipment in 22 Bell Atlantic central offices in the Mid-Atlantic region and plans to have the service running in 60 to 90 days, said Peter Cousin, director of marketing for Picus.

"This is a huge deal because Picus is the first service provider putting a stake in the ground with an aggressive rollout strategy [for voice over DSL]," said Jennifer Stagnaro, vice president of marketing at CopperCom. "It has taken a long time to prove to the outside world what we already knew - this is market validation that our strategy is paying off."

In addition to the CopperCom equipment, Nokia will provide its D50 Speedlink DSL access multiplexer (DSLAM) to Picus. The CLEC also has contracted Nokia for project management, network implementation and integration and other services.

"We chose CopperCom because of its [interoperability] relationship with Nokia and because of the advantages of the CopperCom product," Cousin said. CopperCom's solution offers ease of use and operation, he added.

However, easy implementation is where one analyst sees a potential snare in voice-over-DSL rollouts. "It is not a no-brainer in terms of implementation," said Paula Reinman, vice president of consulting at TeleChoice. "Voice over DSL is something where service providers can entrust and see value in the offer up front, but the devil will be in the implementation details."

But while CopperCom basks in the glory of a first announced voice-over-DSL win, TollBridge Technologies also announced last week that its products will support the developing Internet Engineering Task Force standard for controlling telephony gateways, media gateway controller protocol. With that achievement, the IP-based TollBridge solution can link today's circuit-switched telephone network and next generation IP-based switches, said Jim Grady, vice president of marketing at TollBridge.