While RedSiren declined to provide terms or state a value for the contract, it sees the linkup with Qwest as an entree into the promising new arena of Internet phone service, which experts project will boom from 970,000 customers at the end of this year to nearly 3 million nationwide before 2006 before really taking off.
Keeping Web-based business phones lines safe from malicious competitors and cyberterrorists, much as it has done providing security from viruses, worms and other attacks on regular network computers, is a natural for his 5-year-old company, said RedSiren Chief Executive Officer Doug Goodall.
«Hackers are discovering a new frontier -- Internet telephone service,» Goodall said. «We’re now saying not only can we monitor and manage your network for reliability and security, but we can provide those exact same services for your phone network as well as your data network.»
VoIP has been around for a decade, but only in the past two years has it really started to catch on, in part because regional Bells such as Qwest and cable companies such as Comcast can use it to bypass barriers to providing long-distance phone service.
Instead of using traditional copper wire land lines, VoIP allows consumers to use their own internal computer network or the Web to make phone calls, using Internet technology that breaks down the voice into bits of digital data that’s reassembled and heard -- or read, if desired -- on the receiving end.«Voice-over-IP
is the next telecommunications network,» said Lloyd Mahaffey, RedSiren’s chairman.
«There’s not a major customer that we’re involved with that’s not moving in that direction.»
Like the ’90s cell phone boom, VoIP is poised to revolutionize the way people and businesses communicate, according to Yankee Group Research Director Bryan Van Dussen.
With VoIP, gone will be the days of wading through a stack of voice mails; instead, they’ll all be accessible via one e-mail inbox, in print form, alongside regular e-mail. Callers in various locations also will be able to talk and share digital files.
And the costs, once everything is up and running, will be much cheaper than hiring separate companies for phone and computer service since everything -- voice mail and e-mail, long distance, local calls, videoconferencing and internal network communications -- are done using one technology.
Indeed, Mark Withrow isn’t as worried about security risks as he is about saving money, which is why the director if information technology for the Pennsylvania Culinary Institute last year had 18 VoIP phones installed at two of the school’s Downtown locations, saving the institute $200 a month for each phone. «If you go to a land-line provider, they charge you an exorbitant amount,» he said.
There’s also an element of simplicity when using VoIP -- when the technology doesn’t work, you call one person -- not a local phone guy or a long-distance guy or a computer guy, depending on the problem. "All consumers want to know is, ’Why doesn’t this work?’ " said Brian Conboy, whose company, Duquesne-based Advanticom Inc., installed and manages the culinary institute’s network.
VoIP is necessary market for RedSiren. It has managed to stay afloat during the tech slump, with layoffs paring its work force to about 86 from more than 110 in June 2002, but has yet to make a profit.
While the privately held firm won’t disclose revenue, it has benefited from the post-9/11 security rage, which helped it raise $34 million in venture capital in the past 3 1/2 years, most of it after the attacks. But it’s yet to go public, as Mahaffey in 2002 predicted would have occurred by now, leading some to speculate that it may be positioning itself to be acquired.
Goodall declined to confirm whether or not RedSiren was positioning itself to be sold to the likes of behemoths such as Qwest. Instead, he said he was focused on turning a profit by next year’s first quarter. «The No. 1 priority that I have is to get the company where» profits are sustainable. «We’re on that path.»
