Comcast has surpassed the two million customer milestone for Comcast Digital Voice, the company's innovative home phone service. Comcast Digital Voice is a fully featured, reliable and less expensive alternative for traditional telephone service. The company celebrated by awarding a customer in southeast Michigan with a digital home makeover to take advantage of the new integrated features that are available through its Triple Play package of phone, high-speed Internet and video services.

Surpassing two million Comcast Digital Voice customers underscores the record growth Comcast continues to experience across all cable products as it aggressively rolls out its Triple Play package of services.

"The momentum our voice product has experienced since it was launched is simply staggering," said Cathy Avgiris, senior vice president and general manager of Voice Services for Comcast. "We anticipate continued growth for the Digital Voice product and look forward to unveiling additional innovative features and services to our customers."

In addition to the cost savings and convenience of using one company for all services, the bundle provides further value and simplicity because customers benefit from the value-added features and integration of the products and services.

With the new agreement, Marco Island Cable will be able to provide voice services to its customers utilizing VoIP technology. Slated for testing starting in early March 2007, Marco Island Cable envisions launching its service to its cable subscribers in the Marco Island and Naples, FL communities. Marco Island Cable announced plans to offer a unique "Follow Me" calling plan, thanks to their agreement with YFonGlobal. The growing cable service provider will be able to allow seasonal residents to use one phone number that works both at their Marco Island winter home, as well their summer home, "up north".

"Our partnership with YFonGlobal will provide our customers a menu of quality services ranging from TV, telephone and cable internet access that many would suspect would only be available in large metropolitan areas," according to Marco Island Cable Company President Bill Gaston. "We are able to preserve the personalized, hands-on customer service that a small, home-town company like ours offers, with the added benefit of delivering leading edge services that our clients have come to expect," explained Gaston.

Global Crossing announced that its Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) Outbound Service is available to enterprise and carrier customers in Mexico.

Using Global Crossing's VoIP Outbound Service, customers in Mexico can place international calls via an IP interface to Global Crossing. The IP-based voice traffic is then transported across Global Crossing's private IP backbone network. This global network ensures that VoIP packets receive the highest priority and delivers consistent, predictable call quality not possible with voice services based on public Internet transport; international voice calls are delivered with minimal latency, packet loss and jitter. In addition, VoIP Outbound Service supports several access methods including IP VPN, Dedicated Internet Access and public Internet access.

As more consumers turn their backs on traditional landline telephone service, analysts see Internet telephony going mainstream in the next two years. Projections indicate there will be 32 million Internet phone lines while traditional residential landlines will fall from about 114 million last year to about 88 million by 2009, according to Gartner Research.

Ohio-based Slane Telcom is capitalizing on this trend by acquiring Wireless Internet Service Providers (WISPs) and deploying Motorola's Canopy wireless broadband technology to deliver high-speed Internet and Internet telephony services across the U.S. Slane's 2006 acquisition of a partial ownership stake in Plannet Group of Columbus, Ohio positioned the companies to offer Ohio's first completely wireless transport system offering Voice Over Internet Protocol (VoIP) Services. The company intends to replicate this model in all planned acquisitions.

According to John O'Connor, Slane Telcom partner and CEO of Celerity Networks, the flagship WISP of Slane's holdings, Motorola's award winning technology offers speed and reliability levels that are difficult to duplicate in traditional cable and phone delivery systems. "The big benefit is our ability to serve rural markets and underserved pockets in the urban landscape that until now have had no viable option for high-speed Internet and Digital Voice services."

As the Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) market moves to maturity from its early-adopter phase, mass-market consumers need to be convinced of the service benefits of VoIP. New and enhanced services that are likely to leverage the public’s strong interest in broadband and PC usage are replacing traditional circuit-switched telephony. At the same time, these services need to be user friendly in order to attract non-technical users.

New analysis from Frost & Sullivan, North American Residential VoIP Services Markets reveals that revenues in this industry totaled $1.22 billion in 2005 and estimate to reach $13.2 billion in 2012.

If you are interested in a virtual brochure, which provides manufacturers, end users and other industry participants an overview of the latest analysis of the North American residential VoIP services markets, then send an email to Ravinder Kaur, Corporate Communications, at ravinder.kaur@frost.com with your full name, company name, title, telephone number, city, state, country and email. Upon receipt of the above information, an overview will be sent to you by e-mail.

VoEX a major VoIP managed services provider has opened a new corporate office in the Denver area. VoEX will occupy office space at 320 Interlocken Parkway in suburban Broomfield, Colo. This additional location will allow VoEX to expand its Operations organization to support the company’s continued rapid growth.

The additional location provides geographic diversity from VoEX corporate headquarters in the San Francisco Bay Area and its roots in Grand Rapids, Mich. The centralized location of the new office will also allow VoEX easy access to its customers and network Points of Presence, as most major metropolitan areas in the United States are directly reachable from the Denver Area. VoEX will be able to maintain its high quality service levels while effectively serving customers located throughout North America.

“As VoEX continues its innovation in VoIP services, this office will become an integral part of the company’s growth,” said COO Brent Bourne. “We’re looking forward to joining the Denver area’s high-tech community and doing our part to help it grow.”

DigiLinea announces that KDDI will use the DigiLinea US Hispanic -- Latin American VoIP Enabler Platform to provide their clients worldwide with the availability of local DID's from over 100 cities across Latin America and high quality low cost direct termination regionwide.

The DigiLinea US Hispanic -- Latin American VoIP Enabler Platform allows service providers to offer local Latin American Telephone Numbers, Direct Termination, and Unlimited Flat Fee Calling Plans providing a turnkey suite for addressing the needs of the global Latino community. The DigiLinea VoIP Enabler Platform allows service providers to quickly and efficiently launch customized VoIP offerings which are of high value to the Latino market, and at the same time, dramatically lower their clients cost of communications to and from Latin America while increasing service provider revenue and profits per line.

Missouri consumers are just starting to see the benefits of meaningful phone service competition. Much of this competition is facilities based, physical structure built in Missouri, while other competition comes from providers such as Vonage who ride on others' networks -- but much of the competition and new services result from the benefits of digital Internet Protocol technology.

Unfortunately, Missouri's Public Service Commission is trying to regulate this new voice technology and service. The Commission is also splitting hairs to draw distinctions among providers -- aiming to put different, heavier regulation on the facilities-based IP voice technology (commonly called Voice over Internet Protocol or VoIP) such as that offered by network owners, than on VoIP offered by nonfacilities-based providers such as Vonage.

KeyOn Communications is now the United States' leading provider of wireless broadband and voice-over-IP (VoIP) services in small and rural markets with its recent acquisition of SpeedNet Services, a Midwest-based wireless broadband company. This continued consolidation by KeyOn bridges the country's communication divide through the creation of the largest rural, wireless broadband company in the nation, covering a dozen states: Nevada, Idaho, Colorado, Iowa, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, Illinois, Indiana and Ohio; with a network footprint of over 45,000 square miles.

The purchase of SpeedNet comes after KeyOn's recent completion of two successful acquisitions: Southern Iowa Regional Internet Services (SIRIS), an Iowa wireless broadband provider; and a wireless broadband market in Pocatello, Idaho, from FairPoint Communications, Inc.

KeyOn uses both licensed and unlicensed spectrum to deliver broadband and VoIP services to non-metropolitan and rural communities using the highest quality and most cost-effective technology platform available. KeyOn intends to introduce enhanced services into its wide-reaching network by leveraging new technological standards such as WiMAX. KeyOn's geographically sweeping networks are managed with the company's scalable, proprietary BrightEDGE Manager Operating Support System.

AccessLine announced its SmartVoice Service for business has increased the availability of local numbers in key metro areas throughout the Pacific Northwest. This enables a small- to medium-size business using SmartVoice Service to develop a virtual presence almost anywhere in the Pacific Northwest by providing its customers local phone numbers. It is a cost-effective and convenient method for enhancing a business’s customer service while simultaneously taking advantage of the cost savings of VoIP through lower long distance toll rates.

Cedar Point and MetroCast Cablevision announced the selection of Cedar Point as the exclusive switching vendor for the delivery of voice-over-IP cable telephony services throughout the MetroCast service footprint.

MetroCast, which earlier this fall began providing cable television in southeastern Connecticut, will deploy Cedar Point's integrated, packet-based SAFARI C(Cubed) Multimedia Switching System for residential and commercial telephony rollouts to approximately 145,000 total subscribers in systems in Connecticut, Maine, New Hampshire, Maryland, Pennsylvania and Virginia. In addition, MetroCast and Cedar Point are continuing a five-year history of collaboration through the creation of a field environment for the testing, trial and technology validation of advanced voice and multimedia capabilities.

Acme Packet has been selected by Iowa Network Services, Inc. as its session border control provider to support its hosted VoIP services. INS, which is owned by 127 rural Iowa Independent Telephone Companies, offers wholesale services to multiple local exchange carriers in the state of Iowa. Deployed to support both access and interconnect applications, Acme Packet’s Net-Net session border controllers enable high-quality hosted IP Centrex business applications and IP PBX trunking along with the ability to securely connect to the broadband networks of INS’ participating LECs

babyTEL is expanding into the United States market; offering retail customers freedom from both expensive traditional phone lines and big VoIP players with their service challenges.

"We're nimble. We're customer focused. And we have a proven technology that our loyal Canadian customers love," says Stephen Dorsey, babyTEL President and MIT engineering graduate. "Now we're open for business in the U.S. supplying Americans with no hassle VoIP service, U.S. phone numbers and responsive tech support, something the so-called giants have trouble delivering. We know the key to success is serving, not alienating, the customer."

Beyond the boring "lowest price" mantra in the industry, babyTEL is about innovation and supplying customers with true VoIP benefits that traditional phone lines can't deliver and big VoIP companies don't deliver.

Bandwidth.com announces that top executives Henry Kaestner and David Morken have been awarded Frost & Sullivan's North American IP Communications Services Co-CEOs of the Year honors for their leadership in both the market and the workplace. This Frost & Sullivan Award is bestowed each year upon the CEO or executive who has demonstrated leadership excellence within their industry. With this year's Co-CEO designation, Bandwidth.com's superior leadership is doubly recognized and shows the teamwork ideology that has made the company one of the fastest growing telecom companies in 2006. Frost & Sullivan has recognized Bandwidth.com's success in the SME market, its traction in the business-class VoIP space and its goals for the coming year with this honor.

Vonage announces that more than 94 percent of its U.S. subscriber lines are now equipped with Enhanced 911 (E911) service -- a feature that automatically associates a physical address with the calling party's telephone number. The most recent upgrades bring the total number of lines fitted for E911 to more than 2 million.

Vonage's nomadic E911 solution gives customers the ability to reach a Public Safety Answering Point (PSAP) or 911 centers, through the dedicated 911 network infrastructure. With Vonage's nomadic E911 solution, a customer's call is automatically routed to the appropriate 911 center, with the caller's registered street address and telephone number appearing on the dispatchers screen -- regardless of where or what exchange they are calling from. Vonage will continue to turn up and test new PSAPs that are VoIP-ready every day.