Internet Phone Provider

Fresh off the press just minutes ago, apparently Verizon was selected by the State of Massachusetts to provide a 100 million dollar voip hardware and services deal that entails replacing 24,000 analog handsets over the next 5 years. San Diego's VoIP hardware industry leader Cisco Systems is named as a hardware subcontractor in the deal intended to integrate ip based telephony and data network distribution for Massachusetts largest state agency, the Massachusetts Executive Office of Health and Human Services.

CEO of Massachusetts Health Data Consortium Ray Campbell feels that this project is significant due to its size, and commented that "State government is a huge technology delivery organization...Tying voice data with data networks is money well spent." We couldn't agree more, since this is a perfect example of leveraging VoIP technology for its efficiency and lower costs, by using the same infrastructure for both voice and data applications.

There has been no official statements by state representatives about whether VoIP will be deployed at the other 149 state agencies within Massachusetts. Given the enormous growth in popularity of voice over ip technology (and associated value/cost savings) and obvious truth that VoIP will eventually replace/displace POTS, it's hard to believe this is anything but the tip of the iceberg - an iceberg that is much, much bigger than Massachusetts.