VoIP

Laying a Virtual Foundation for a Global Telco

What do you get when you roll together a voice consulting company, an integrator, and a voice technology company? You get VoIP, Inc.

by Alex Goldman ISP-Planet Managing Editor [August 9, 2004]

When reading about the history of a VoIP company, you don't usually find that it was once a business like this:

Millennia Tea Masters, Inc.(Company) was incorporated on August 3, 1998 under the laws of the State of Texas. The Company was formed to engage principally in the marketing and sale of imported teas.

Welcome to the world of reverse mergers. A reverse merger occurs when an ongoing enterprise buys a company whose sole asset is its stock market listing, avoiding all the costs, paperwork, and publicity associated with an IPO.

The reverse merger between Millenia Tea Masters and a holding company containing several complimentary VoIP businesses occurred in June, 2004. But that doesn't mean the people at the company are new to the business.

"Our CTO, John Todd, and myself have been involved in Internet telephony startups since 1996," explains Clive Raines, the company's president of international operations, speaking over a VoIP connection to his home in Auckland, New Zealand.

The connection is very clear (as is the morning greeting wail of a two year old towards the end of our conversation, which occurs near the end of the business day in New York City but around breakfast time in New Zealand).

Raines says that VoIP is happening now, because the industry finally caught up with the hype. Vonage proved VoIP is possible, and AT&T gave the technology a brand name endorsement.

Ft. Lauderdale, Fla.-based VoIP Incorporated (OTC BB: VOII) plans to be more than a niche player in this market. "We expect to be a global telco with a global network," says Raines.

Currently, the company has servers in the U.S. and the UK (it can offer a virtual phone number in the UK as well as in the U.S.), but it will add servers (and coverage) as it grows.

The company is speaking with ISP-Planet because it believes that the ISP is the ideal customer and evangelist for this technology.

"Everyone in our industry has always seen ISPs as the ideal customer," says Raines. "But very few have been successful in getting ISPs to buy their service and deploy it. Telecommunications is a specialized area, and ISPs cannot develop the complex billing, work out the marketing, and of course dealing with telcos has been a nightmare."

Price is also an issue. Raines says the total do it yourself package would cost about one or two million dollars, and that's before factoring in the cost of long term carrier agreements.

Instead, Raines recommends that ISPs contact VoIP, Inc.'s voice consulting company, VoIP Solutions. "The whole setup cost of a virtual service provider is under $10,000," he says. ISPs also pay for CPE, at a discount (it retails at $100).

The company uses SIP devices and Raines says its provisioning servers, which use HTTPS, not TFTP, are more secure than the competition.

The $10,000 pays for a partition in the billing system for the ISP, a web site template, training, and more.

Certainly this is not the only VoIP provider you should look at, but it should be on your list.

Towards the end of my call, Raines suggests I call him back, at his Florida office, where he works most of the year. I call his Florida number and am patched flawlessly through to his home office in New Zealand. VoIP is nifty.

—End