Broadly Speaking

VoIP promises to lower phone bills and connect more people than ever before. One IP telephony provider—the subsidiary of a respected CLEC—shows the way.

by Alex Goldman ISP-Planet Associate Editor [February 13, 2004]

Orlando, Fla.-based Broadline Communications is offering the kinds of prices that VoIP makes possible, and that could change the telephone industry forever.

$19.95 per month gets free unlimited local calls and 3.5 cents per minute for statewide and national long distance. $29.95 per month buys free statewide calls and 3.5 cents per minute national long distance. $39.95 per month buys free calls nationwide.

Plans come with all of the extras that others charge premium money for including: call forwarding, call return (*69), call selector (distinctive ring), message waiting light, speed dialing, and three way calling.

As an ISP or CLEC, you're thinking, "I'd like to offer that too." Here's how Broadline does it.

The company's principal big advantage is that it's a subsidiary of a well-known CLEC, Orlando, Fla.-based FDN Communications. FDN was founded in 1998 and currently serves several of Florida's richest markets, plus Atlanta, Georgia. The company has several other enterprises, including the DSL operations it purchased in April, 2003 from MPower.

Broadline is FDN's VoIP venture. For FDN, it makes sense to keep a VoIP operation close, but separate, because the regulatory environment for VoIP is in flux, and the business could change overnight with a new ruling from the FCC or the state PUC (see, for example, FCC Poised to Issue Proposed VoIP Rules).

Matt Blocha is president of Broadline Communications and CTO of FDN Communications. He put it all together with a team of twelve veteran developers, unusually large for a startup. "We selected best of breed CPE that worked very well at the cost point we needed," he says. "We were also looking for companies that respond to our needs."

Broadline selected an MTA from InnoMedia, a voice gateway from Nuera, and Jasomi's PeerPoint to tie it all together.

Blocha is proud of the parts his team built. "We built our own OSS. It's scalable and automated. The customer goes to our website and places an order, and that's all automated. The first time a human sees the order is when they're testing the CPE just before shipping it."

Broadline expects to roll out to all of the areas that FDN serves, but started in Orlando, the Space Coast (a high tech corridor), Daytona Beach, and Jacksonville, with very positive results. "We've accelerated the business plan due to the strong response," says Blocha. "Now we're targeting a rollout in South Florida and Atlanta."

The Jasomi equipment plays a key role in the network (for more on the equipment see Jasomi in the Middle). "You can take our MTA from your home to the office and then back to your home. Besides the firewall issue, you'll be logging on with a different IP at the home, at the office, and on the road in a hotel. Jasomi is the intelligent device that talks to our CPE and figures out who you are and where you are. It's the only device that we could that would do that reliably through a variety of different firewalls."

Blocha looked at other options before settling on Jasomi. "Other server-based methods exist, but we just went for the simple hardware-based solution. It worked flawlessly for us. We saw it working in their labs and became a beta tester. Within 30 days of delivery we were able to launch a service offering because of it."

Blocha looks forward to working with Jasomi over the long term. "The pricing model allows us to grow into it. I can buy the capacity to support more concurrent calls. They're pitching it as a complete solution, and now I won't look at other technologies. I'm focused on growing a business that works, not on making changes."

Broadly speaking, that sounds pretty good.

— End