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By MICHAEL ZITZ
OYCE DORRIS knows the big-time, high-stakes telecommunications industry.
She helped brainstorm the
But she's no out-of-touch, limo-riding, latte-sipping, Madison Avenue executive.
She knows small-town life, too.
The Vienna resident has family in Fredericksburg, visits the area, and understands the mix of commuters and country people here.
And she's convinced SunRocket, the fledgling broadband telephone company she co-founded with Paul Erickson that recently launched in the Fredericksburg-area market, will fly high, even with suburban moms and rural grandmas who may be distrustful of new technology.
The service, Voice over Internet Protocol, uses a Web connection, a PC or laptop, and wireless handsets to replace land-line phones as a vehicle for voice communication.
"We know it's true that wives are sometimes not as eager to adopt new technology as their husbands are," she said.
They often are reluctant to let go of their land lines, she said.
They tend to be more practical and less tempted to jump on the tech bandwagon for every new gadget, she acknowledged.
And she said she knows some feel safer with land lines because they are concerned about being able to call for help during power outages.
She understands all that, she said.
But she thinks she knows how to persuade them.
SunRocket is going after Internet telephony newbies with "no-gotcha" marketing.
And it hopes to win over doubters gradually by supplementing land-line service.
It offers the nation's only annual, all-inclusive home phone service for $199. That's less than $17 a month for unlimited local and long distance, free international minutes and over a dozen built-in calling features.
Dorris said another more limited plan designed to let users keep their land line, but slash its cost, will help ease the anxiety of technophobes
The phone marketing guru would indeed seem to be in touch with Sue as well as Sam Suburbanite.
In April, her company, which started in November 2004 with the goal of replacing traditional residential phone service, reached the 100,000-subscriber mark faster than any VoIP company ever has, SunRocket spokesman Brian Lustig said. It now reaches 112,000 homes and is the country's second-fastest-growing Internet phone provider, he said.
At MCI, SunRocket honchos Dorris and Erickson teamed up to create some of the most successful marketing programs in telecom history.
And they think they've come up with another winner in their "no-gotcha" theme.
The "bottom-line" pricing has no monthly fees, taxes or penalties. The package includes two handsets, one with a second number. The pair can also have a push-to-talk, walkie-talkie function.
The big question may be whether SunRocket's supplemental plan will succeed in attracting those afraid to cut the cord on traditional service.
Dorris said it can scale back land-line costs from something like $60 to $20 while adding 200 Internet telephone minutes a month and some free international calls to Canada, Puerto Rico and 31 international destinations for $9.95 a month.
And, she thinks both husbands and wives will like features such as voicemail messages being automatically e-mailed to PCs as audio files.
More than 4 million American households now subscribe to VoIP services. With 45 million U.S. homes hooked up to broadband, that leaves room for substantial growth in Internet telephone service.
Lustig said SunRocket is a residential-oriented company, but wants to "integrate telephone service in a central way," including work phones, home phones and PC instant messaging.
"People are just getting comfortable in using Internet telephone service," Lustig said.
But on the horizon are tech developments that could make the consumer leap from traditional land lines to Internet-based service that now seems daunting.
Advanced VoIP services are beginning to allow phones, cell phones, PDAs and computers to converge to help users stay in touch and save money.
ABI Research, a company that researches tech trends in New York, is calling the seamless hand-off of a phone call from a Wi-Fi network to a cellular network "the holy grail" of wireless/Internet provider convergence.
Phillip Solis, senior wireless connectivity analyst at ABI, says new convergence devices that will be able to tap into Internet telephone service, such as the Motorola RSG system to be introduced late this year, are part of a trend that could cause VoIP use to soar. More and more devices are expected to allow users to switch back and forth between cell, land-line and VoIP use, employing home networks.
SunRocket sees the Fredericksburg market as ripe for the picking.
Elsewhere, one of SunRocket's primary competitors, Cox Communications, doesn't offer VoIP, but routes calls over cable lines rather than land lines. That service comes either bundled with broadband and TV service or stand-alone. But Cox voice service isn't available yet in the area.
Alex Horwitz, a Cox spokesman, said "Fredericksburg is on our radar screen" for voice service. But the company has no timetable for delivery. He said that in Fairfax, unlimited stand-alone voice service is $40 a month, but that most users opt for the bundled package, which usually runs about $100.
Verizon's VoiceWing broadband phone service is available in the area. It provides local and long-distance service at $35 for the first six months, then runs $40 a month, the company said.
About 3 million of the 4 million Internet telephone service users use cable providers, said Brian Dietz a spokesperson for the National Cable and Telecommunications Association in Washington.
Digital phone service via cable is typically offered in a bundle with television and high-speed Internet service, Dietz said, usually running around $100 a month for the package.
Web portals like Google are offering new "chat-based" instant-messenger voice services that require a microphone.
And this month America Online has launched its new AIM Phone with its own number for a flat $14.99 monthly fee.
To reach MICHAEL ZITZ:
Email: mikez@freelancestar.com
