Continuing to team with telecoms, Covad will provide wholesale digital subscriber line
The 2-year pact comes just days after it the Santa Clara, Calif., company signed a multi-year deal with VarTec Telecom. Covad also counts AT&T and Z-Tel among its partners.
Covad spokeswoman Kathleen Greene said the company already works with MCI for its UUNet business-class services.
The new pact relies on line spliting, where access to residential lines are “split” between Covad and a competitive voice provider.
For MCI, which is looking to put bankruptcy behind it, the move allows it to fold high-speed Internet access into its Neighborhood HiSpeed and Business Complete HiSpeed bundles — a competitive must.
Most service providers have embarked on bundling strategies, believing that a single point of contact for all residential communications services will reduce customer churn — jumping between different service providers.
Through this partnership, Asburn, Va.-based MCI will access to Covad’s nationwide network, which covers over 1,800 central offices, serving more than 40 million homes and businesses in 96 U.S. markets.
