Wednesday, January 25, 2006

Major VoIP Cable Peering Deal - XConnect Wins Dutch Market

The endless stream of press releases is under way at the TMC ITExpo show, but I wanted to talk about one in particular. It's the announcement that XConnect has won the contract to handle peering for all the cable VoIP traffic in Holland. I posted about what's happening in the Dutch cable market last week, and now this development has become news.

It's a big deal in the sense that cablecos are seeing value in peering, and given the very high penetration rate of cable in Holland, this adds up to a lot of traffic in that market. As per my last post, I referenced a James Enck post stating that 6% of the Dutch voice market is now cable. That's an impressive number, and if XConnect can demonstrate the value and viability of VoIP peering among the Dutch cablecos, it will send a strong message to the PTTs and ILECs that there's strength in numbers among MSOs. And, by acting as one, they really lend legitimacy to VoIP, and more importantly the value of peering - not just to reduce costs, but to become more competitive. If that doesn't get the telcos more concerned, I'm not sure what else will.

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