VoIP Spells Bundle of Issues for Cable Giants

The cable industry's Bell-ringing days are a ways off yet.

Eager to offer consumers the full range of television, Internet and phone service, outfits such as Comcast (CMCSA Quote), Cox (COX Quote) and Time Warner (TWX Quote) are very publicly eyeing plans to offer Internet calling.

The cable giants' phone ambitions would seem to set up a clash of the titans over dominance of the nation's telecom turf. Local phone giants Verizon (VZ Quote), SBC (SBC Quote) and BellSouth (BLS Quote) already are struggling to stem the erosion of local access lines. Now, some investors see cable's voice-over-Internet-protocol, or VoIP, challenge as a likely replay of the wireless tide that swept away customers by the boatload.

But the battle of the communications bundle is forging some odd pairings. Some cable companies aren't ready to go it alone in the calling business and have enlisted telcos such as MCI, Sprint (FON Quote) and Level 3 (LVLT Quote) to provide big pieces of the phone service puzzle. Other companies must yet decide exactly how they'll provide the cable voice service that consumers supposedly are so ardently demanding. ...