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Just In: Vonage and EarthLink Team to Offer WiFi Access
 TMCnet Contributing Editor
VoIP  service provider Vonage ( News - Alert) announced Monday that it joined forces with EarthLink to offer customers WiFi Internet access in select cities throughout the United States. The companies did so by inking a new, three-year contract.
The new contract calls for Vonage to buy Internet access on a wholesale basis from EarthLink in all cities where the company will build, own and operate municipal wireless networks. Vonage agreed to resell this WiFi Internet service to its consumers under the Vonage brand.
EarthLink has ongoing municipal WiFi ( News - Alert) contracts in Philadelphia; Anaheim, California; Milpitas, California and New Orleans.
“Giving Vonage customers greater access to affordable, high-speed Internet access makes great sense, and is another way we are working to improve the Vonage customer experience,” said Vonage’s CEO, Mike Snyder, in a statement. “From the moment customers purchase our service, we are focused on making sure that we meet and exceed their expectations and that they can connect more easily, affordably and reliably than with any other provider.”
As an added bonus, Vonage reportedly has plans later this year to provide hardware—such as wireless modem devices and other complementary software tools—to customers who will be using the service, as an alternative to DSL or cable modems. The VoIP service provider said that it also plans to make its WiFi phone compatible with this new service.
“As a leader in municipal WiFi networks, EarthLink is committed to open access, which enables other companies to offer their unique services to their customers at consumer-friendly rates,” said Donald Berryman, executive vice president for EarthLink and president of the ISP's municipal networks unit, in a statement. “Vonage can continue to trail blaze and evolve its brand by expanding its suite of product offerings, through this agreement, in the emerging municipal WiFi market.”
Vonage also announced Monday that Tim Smith, the company’s interim president of Vonage Network, Inc., since June 2006, will now hold the position permanently.
As president of Vonage Network Inc., a subsidiary of Vonage Holdings Corp., Smith will be in charge of all of Vonage’s network and systems operations globally and manage the Vonage Network staff.
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Johanne Torres is contributing editor for TMCnet and Internet Telephony magazine. To see more articles by Johanne Torres, please visit her columnist page. Voice over IP (VoIP) | X | | A real-time communications system that converts voice into digital packets containing media and signaling data that travel over networks using Internet Protocol....more |
Digital Subscriber Line (DSL) | X | | Frequency Division Multiplexing is used in wireline systems such as CATV-Community Antenna TeleVision and DSL-Digital Subscriber Line systems. This form of FDM is also called Broadband Multiplexing o...more |
Wireless Fidelity (WiFi) | X | | The IEEE 802.11 wireless LAN standard is usually referred to as Wi-Fi-Wireless Fidelity or RLAN-Radio Local Area Network. The 802.11 standard has evolved into a number of sub-standards 802.11a/b/g/n....more |
Internet Protocol (IP) | X | | IP stands for Internet Protocol, a data-networking protocol developed throughout the 1980s. It is the established standard protocol for transmitting and receiving data
in packets over the Internet. I...more |
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