Socket Looks Forward to New Telephone Service Competition- Columbia Tribune

August 2005- Just a few months after local Internet provider Socket announced plans to offer telephone service to businesses, the city’s cable operator has decided to join the fray and sell local land-line telephone service.

"We’ll begin testing this fall," said Gary Baugh, Mediacom’s director of operations for Columbia and Jefferson City. "We’ll start with employees andtestthe quality and make sure we get all the bugs worked out, and then we’ll rock and roll."

Columbia will be one of the earlytestmarkets for Mediacom phone service. So far, the service is offered only in Gibson City, Ill., and Valdosta, Ga., said Marco Rustici, Mediacom’s senior director for telephone service.

Baugh said phone service from Mediacom will be "anything you can get through any phone company" and should roll out soon after the testing period, which is expected to last a few weeks.

Carson Coffman, Socket’s vice president of sales and marketing, said Mediacom’s foray into local phone service is good news.

"We like competition. It’s what we’re all about," he said. "It’ll create awareness that there is an option for local phone service other than CenturyTel. That’s been one of our biggest obstacles."

In March, Socket Telecom LLC, an affiliate of Socket Internet, announced plans to launch telephone service for business customers.

The announcement followed four years of jumping through state regulatory hoops, negotiating an interconnection agreement with CenturyTel and spending a bundle in the process. Carson said telecommunication deals have been inked with about 80 business customers statewide.

Mediacom, which serves about 26,000 local cable subscribers, partnered with Sprint a year ago to gain access to telephone lines and 911 emergency service in an effort to jump into the local telephone market.

Baugh said basic monthly telephone service, including unlimited long distance, is slated to cost $49.95. A package deal that bundles phone, cable and Internet service will go for $99.85 per month under a "special deal."

The company will combine all services onto one bill.

The potential payoff for phone service is big. The estimated annual value of Missouri telephone service is $10 billion, according to a report from the Missouri Telecommunications Industry Association. And three major players go after it: SBC, Sprint and CenturyTel.

Regional phone companies such as CenturyTel bought fragments of larger phone systems after the AT&T breakup in 1984. Monroe, La.-based CenturyTel took over Verizon’s book of business in 2002, giving it 3 million customers in 22 states, including Missouri.

CenturyTel has heard footsteps before.

"We’re used to competition from cable companies," said Don Neely, local spokesman for CenturyTel. "This is just teeing it up on a different front."

Neely said competition in the local market will "heat up" with internet service providers, cable operators and wireless companies vying for customers. CenturyTel also has packaged deals for Internet, Dish Satellite Network and phone services, he said.

Mediacom, founded in 1995, is the nation’s eighth-largest cable television operator with 1.5 million subscribers in 23 states.

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