Earthlink Announces First Market Trial of Innovative Bundle of Phone Services and High Speed Internet (News Release)   - 2,014 Views, 1 Comment

San Jose, Calif and Atlanta (June 6, 2005) — Covad and EarthLink, the nation’s next generation Internet Service Provider, today announced a new Voice over IP (VoIP) joint market trial that will give EarthLink the ability to offer its customers low-cost phone services along with high-speed Internet access. The three-market trial is slated to begin in October in Dallas, TX, San Francisco and San Jose, CA, and Seattle, WA.

The new service, made possible through Covad line-powered voice access, is designed to provide an affordable alternative to the local phone companies. Customers will be able to sign up for local and long distance phone service and high-speed Internet access using their existing phones, wiring and computer equipment. Just like traditional phone service, EarthLink’s voice services will operate during a power outage, support enhanced 911 calling and offer custom calling features.

“Our customers are looking to us for an expanded portfolio of low-cost, high quality voice and data products to meet their growing communications needs,� said Steve Howe, EarthLink vice president of voice. “Partnering with Covad on a market trial of this scale builds upon our existing voice strategy and better positions us to deliver an exciting package of voice and data services.�

“This new combined phone and high-speed Internet services opens up a major new market opportunity for Covad and EarthLink,� said Andrew Lockwood, Covad executive vice president-strategic development. “Together we have created a compelling service which we believe will be very attractive to a large number of customers. Best of all, through strengthening our strategic partnership both Covad and EarthLink are better able to deliver on the commitment to keep our customers a step ahead by offering innovative products and services such as this.�

Covad’s line-powered voice access marries the “last mile� of traditional telephone copper wiring with the advanced features of VoIP by taking advantage of the next-generation Digital Subscriber Line Access Multiplexer (DSLAM) technology that will enable Covad to offer higher-speed broadband access (ADSL 2+, G.SHDSL) and new business-class services such as metro Ethernet and bonded T1.

EarthLink customers will enjoy high quality service because their calls will be delivered over Covad’s and EarthLink’s managed national networks rather than the public Internet. Subscribers will also receive EarthLink’s award-winning customer service and Internet tools and services like spamBlocker, VirusBlockerTM and Spyware BlockerTM.