Prices said 10% below BellSouth

By CHAD CALDER
ccalder@theadvocate.com
Advocate business writer

Cox Communications Inc. will begin offering local and long-distance telephone service over the Internet today in most of East Baton Rouge Parish and will expand it into the six other parishes in its coverage area over the next five months, the company said Monday.

Cox’s digital phone service -- known in industry parlance as Voice over Internet Protocol, or VoIP -- will use the company’s private network and will undercut BellSouth’s prices by 10 percent in an effort to gain market share, Cox said in a press release.

Cox is offering single-line phone service, for example, for as little as $11.37 per month, plus other external fees normally associated with phone service.

Cox and other telecommunications players are moving into other segments of the industry in hopes of getting people to buy «bundled» services -- telephone, cable television and Internet service -- because of digital quality sound, lower prices and the convenience of having everything on a single bill.

Cox said that a customer with all three services -- telephone with unlimited local and long distance and various popular calling features; expanded or digital cable television; and high-speed Internet -- would pay $115.39, saving $31 off the price of getting each of the three services individually.

Here’s a breakdown of how some package variations could work:

The company offers a digital phone service on one line, voice mail and 14 additional features with 100 minutes of long distance and additional long distance at 5 cents per minute for $38.90 a month. These customers, who have high-speed Internet, would also get $10 a month off of their cable television service.

Customers who get either Cox’s expanded basic cable television or high-speed Internet service can get one residential primary line, unlimited local and nationwide long distance, voice mail and 14 other calling features for $49.45 per month.

That same service costs $54.95 for non-cable or Internet customers, the company said.

Customers buying both Cox’s expanded or digital cable and high-speed Internet would get Cox’s unlimited telephone service for $43.95 a month, and receive $10 off per month on their expanded basic cable television or higher.

Cox spokeswoman Sharon Kleinpeter said VoIP is a natural progression for Cox after investing so heavily in its cable and fiber-optic infrastructure

«It’s the most logical next step, and your seeing it all over the marketplace, not just with Cox,» she said.

Kleinpeter said regular fees apply to the company’s phone service, including the Federal Communications Commission access charge of $6.50 for the first line and $6.67 for each additional line; the 911 emergency charge of between 50 cents and 85 cents; federal, state and city taxes of 8 percent; the universal service fee of 8.9 percent and the 5-cent Telecommunications for the Deaf fund.

Lisa Froman, spokeswoman for Eatel, said the Gonzales-based telecommunications company is headed in the same direction with so-called «triple play» service of phone, Internet and television service.

Eatel, which offers phone and Internet service, will begin offering cable television in Ascension Parish early next year.

«This whole bundling idea is going to be very important to us in the future,» she said.

Froman said Eatel is not building its fiber network outside Ascension «just yet.»

While Eatel is not going after new telephone customers in East Baton Rouge Parish, when it entered the market it undercut BellSouth’s prices by about 20 percent.

A BellSouth spokesman could not be reached for comment.

Kleinpeter said VoIP customers would get a device installed in their homes similar to a cable modem, which would convert all the phone jacks to Cox’s digital service.

And while it will replace the cable modem used by Cox’s Internet customers, they won’t have to rent or buy it the way they do now.

Cox provides cable television and Internet service to about 180,000 subscribers in East and West Baton Rouge, Ascension and Iberville parishes and parts of St. James, Livingston and East Feliciana parishes.