Mescalero Apache
Telecom Looks To Expand with VoIP
Posted
on: 11/18/2004
Mescalero
Apache Telecom (MATI), a regional telecom provider that serves the Mescalero
Apache reservation and surrounding areas, is planning to expand its services
into new areas with voice over IP, including VoIP over wireless networks.
The phone company's
move into voice over IP is beginning with the addition of a
Metaswitch
VP3500 Series Class 5 Softswitch to add local-number portability to its services
in a cost-effective manner. It was too expensive to upgrade MATIs existing
Siemens Class 5 switch. In addition MATI deployed a Kagoor
session border controller to add security and performance features to its
network.
With the voice-over-IP
infrastructure in place, MATI is now exploring ways to use its capabilities.
Broadband
Everywhere
MATI is already one of the leading tribal phone companies and serves many
customers outside the reservation, both as the incumbent and as an Internet
service provider. It has a significant interconnect business that is now a
VoIP interconnect. MATI has deployed ADSL to 98 percent of residents on the
reservation, and also provides a very competitive long distance service.
The company's
development is assisted by the presence of a cohort of retired or former GTE
staff now living in the pleasant rural New Mexico area that it serves. For
its next moves, MATI is looking "to partner with other voice-over-IP companies
in the business or at least to interconnect with them," says Gary Goff, field
marketing manager, MATI. "Plus we have our own PSTN connectivity here, because
we are a full-blown ILEC and are a long distance provider." In addition the
company is planning to deploy a "Vonage-type service," says Goff, over the
DSL.
VoIP
over Wireless
Perhaps the most adventuresome of the company's plans is a partnership with
Key Communications, a wireless provider delivering broadband wireless services
to resort and retirement communities in the area. Using a Motorola technology,
Key is providing 4 megabit-per-second links to its customers.
MATI, too, had
eyed the wireless broadband data business, but with an experienced provider
already operating in the area that needed help with voice, a natural partnership
sprang up. "They didn't have the voice piece, and they would have to do flip
flops to do backbone connectivity. We could provide that, so that is how it's
going," says Goff.
The wireless
capability opens up an intriguing possibility: That the small tribal phone
company could gointo competition with SBC in locations such as El Paso. "We
are a small outfit right now, and to grow we have to do it on a gradual basis,"
says Goff. "But the big push is using [wireless and VoIP] for the CLEC operation.
It allows us to get into the CLEC business very easily."
For El Paso
"We are leasing dedicated lines to El Paso, with the [last-mile] build-out
done on the radio side. They would be coming back to us for backbone connectivity
and also for VoIP." Besides the wireless, MATI "is looking to partner with
other broadband providers in the area," says Goff. Other targets are Ruidoso
and the numerous resort and retirement communities in nearby mountains.
But the company
is being cautious. "The only thing that scares me about it is quality of service,"
says Goff. "That is why we like direct connectivity with our own service,
because we have control. If we hit someone else's broadband network we don't
know what they do." Still, he says, "We are definitely going that route, and
we want to make sure of what we are doing before we do it."
And MATI, which
runs training conferences for tribal governments every year, has a reputation
to uphold. "Everybody knows what we've done on the reservation, says Goff.
