Cox: VoIP ready for prime time

Cox Communications is shifting more emphasis onto voice over Internet Protocol technology.

The cable provider's broadband phone network still has a place for old-fashioned circuit switches, but a Cox representative confirmed on Tuesday that the company is planning more orders of soft switches and other VoIP network equipment.
Last July, both Comcast and Cox said they had significant reservations about VoIP technology, which digitizes phone calls and packages them in the Internet Protocol. The high price of the equipment needed to create a VoIP phone service with all the trimmings made it to hard to justify risking the investment. So both cable companies stuck with traditional phone switches, which were more expensive to own and operate but had superior reliability and voice quality.

But "now, the price of VoIP equipment has come down," the Cox representative said, making it a more attractive investment. Cox once thought that it would save about 10 percent in capital expenses when choosing VoIP over circuit switches. But that savings is now about 40 percent, the company said.

The move puts more pressure on cable market competitor Comcast to adopt VoIP technology. A Comcast representative did not have an immediate comment.