* Nextlink Communications, McLean, Va., a broadband voice and data service provider, to McKinney & Silver, Raleigh, N.C., part of MarchFirst, as the first agency to handle its account.
It is the standard in FM radio, compact discs and television, but it is rare in telephones, where it has been limited to broadband voice services like Skype.
"I would say in five years, it's all over and done with," said Daniel Berninger, chief executive of Free World Dialup, which sells broadband voice service and HD audio devices in Washington.
A potential new bidder, Oni Communications, a company in Porto Salvo, Portugal, that provides broadband, voice and video telecommunications services to 3,000 businesses, is not confident that the Portuguese government, which wants to raise €200 million from its spectrum auction, will structure a sale that lets new competitors into the market.
Its broadband voice service undercuts the offerings of cable companies such as NTL and Telewest, whose packages of TV, broadband and phone services have eroded BT's traditional share of the voice market.The other part of VOIP's appeal features such as call-forwarding, blocking and transfers can be had from traditional phone companies, albeit at a price and no small measure of inconvenience.
CenturyLink is the third largest telecommunications company in the United States, providing a range of broadband, voice and wireless services to consumers and businesses across the entire country.
But the new AT&T exists in a very different world from the old, since it faces growing competition from cable operators, mobile operators, and firms using new technologies such as wireless broadband, voice-over-internet and broadband over power lines.
This in particular can be achieved through deployment of broadband-voice codecs.
Clearwire will also offer "bundles" of services, including residential broadband and voice, mobile broadband and voice and mobile video/entertainment.
They are mainly losing customers to cable companies, which offer competing broadband and voice services that make copper phone lines unnecessary.
"All of these developments brought with them new policy challenges," he added, challenges that are no smaller now as wireless becomes the primary method of broadband and voice communication for millions of Americans.
