Internet telephony guru Jeff Pulver is at it again, launching a clearinghouse for ISPs and telcos to get together and buy each other's time.
"There's a huge gap between capacity [for Internet phone service] that's been purchased and actual usage," said Pulver, who has been hosting telecom industry conferences for over two years to promote the deployment of Internet telephony service. "There are so many widespread [service providers], but they're just not finding each other."
Min-X.com, aka The Minutes Exchange, will host gatherings four times a year for Internet telephony providers to negotiate and buy "Internet minutes" from one another.
"To all these people what I represent is more traffic," said Pulver.
"These meetings have been occurring at my conferences for the last two-and-a-half years.... I'm literally just trying to scale what I've been doing personally into a business." He's becoming, Pulver said, what Wall Street folks call a "broker's broker."
The appeal of Net telephony is based on cheaper long-distance calls. Instead of using the circuits of traditional long-distance carriers, the voice travels the Net, much like a piece of email or a Web page.
You dial a local ISP on your phone and the call is completed over the Net, where it's typically cheaper than standard long distance. But if your ISP doesn't serve the area, it needs to find a service at the other end to route the call to its destination.
With incumbent telco carriers and ISPs getting into this new field, Pulver says significant capacity has been built up to originate and complete Internet phone calls. But they need his new service as a central meeting place to do business with one another, Pulver maintains.
The Minutes Exchange's quarterly meetings are akin to an annual event held among traditional telcos to negotiate inter-carrier service, Pulver said.
Eventually, he hopes his service fosters enough relationships between providers so that most of the deals can be handled without meeting in person.
Min-X may be coming along at the right time, as traditional Internet service providers are working together to make voice part of their business.
Providers are linking their network resources to make IP telephony services more widely available. These providers, as well as telco big-wigs like AT&T, are offering an easy-in for even mom-and-pop ISPs to offer long-distance Net calling. The telephony providers set up the IP gateways and networks and the ISP just hooks its customers in.
Telephony service providers who join Min-X will list their call termination capabilities with the service. Other providers -- as well as traditional telephone companies interested in routing calls over their regional phone system -- then contact the listing provider and negotiate a contract.
Min-X hopes to profit from a commission on the contracts negotiated between parties introduced using the exchange.
