XO Signs Five Agreements for Wholesale Local Voice Solution

XO Communications Inc. announced it has signed agreements with five CLECs for its wholesale local voice services solution. The agreements are valued at more than $66 million over the next five years.

Launched in August 2005, XOs wholesale offering for CLECs serving the residential and small business markets has gained momentum rapidly as a vital alternative to UNE-P. The XO service delivers all the advantages of UNE-P and enables CLECs to avoid less economical choices such as building their own network facilities, or paying premium prices through commercial agreements or special access services from ILECS.

The platform provides CLECs with a pre-determined block of capacity for telephone lines, and a physical connection for transporting voice traffic from XOs 950 colocation facilities in 70 markets nationally to the CLECs voice switches. As a result, CLECs can provision and manage these lines as part of their own networks, giving them full control over billing to maximize revenue streams, and eliminating the time and expense of central-office buildouts.

XOs wholesale service will enable FONES4ALL, Habla Comunicaciones, i3 Networks, PCS1, and Telscape Communications to provide local and long-distance services more cost-effectively to their residential and small business customers.

We are helping ensure the availability of competitive service for residential and small business customers served by CLECs, said Ernie Ortega, president of carrier sales at XO Communications. Our nationwide wholesale local voice services platform allows CLECs to continue providing their customers the choices, savings and first-rate service they deserve.

Bettina Cardona, FONES4ALL CEO, added, Our residential customers count on us for high-quality, low-cost service. Paying higher prices to lease facilities, or building our own, would dramatically impact our business model. With XO, weve been able to remain cost-competitive without compromising quality, and our customers are the beneficiaries.

Small businesses are an often overlooked segment of the market, stuck between the residential masses and larger enterprises, said Devin Semler, PCS1s CEO. Serving businesses with five lines or less is critical to us, and XOs solution complements our requirements and enables us to deploy a full suite of local and long-distance voice and data services for our customers.

Habla Comunicaciones, which provides local telephone service to the growing Latino market in Texas, was the first customer to deploy XO wholesale local voice services and has been very successful in its implementation efforts. In just three months, Habla Comunicaciones has installed more than 17,000 end users using the XO wholesale platform and continues to install more than 500 new end users per day.

And Ruben Garcia, president and CEO of Telscape Communications, also claimed, This product is a landmark opportunity that allows Telscape to blend our unique telephone network features for our target Hispanic consumers by partnering with the world-class network of XO Communications. This partnership with XOs network has enabled Telscape to cover more Spanish-speaking Hispanic households in Southern California than any other telephone company.