Cox planning digital phone service this year

Kevin Rademacher

Monday, May 23, 2005 | 10:45 a.m.

Local cable provider Cox Communications said it has tentative plans to roll out its digital telephone service in October.

Steve Schorr, Cox vice president, said it will begin offering the service to customers in the northwest part of the Las Vegas Valley.

"Exactly where in the northwest and exactly when we will roll it out to other areas, I'm going to be honest with you, we just don't know yet," he said, adding that October is a "rough" timeframe for the offering.

The Cox service will use the company's own fiber optic network to send calls, and will include such services as voice messaging and call waiting as well as 911 service and e911 service, which allows emergency operators to see the caller's address information.

Cox is currently in negotiations with Sprint to establish an interconnection agreement to determine the terms for transferring calls from the Cox system when they are calling a Sprint customer, Schorr said.

"It's a work in progress," he said.

In other markets where Cox provides telephone service, including Phoenix and San Diego, the company aggressively markets bundles of service that packages phone service with cable television and cable modem Internet service.

"The bundle is the key to it all," Schorr said, adding that similar offerings will be made in Las Vegas.