ElAmin reports The battle between long distance providers and Internet companies has started in Bermuda.

Long distance provider Cable & Wireless Plc has launched a complaint to the Telecommunications Commission against Internet provider Logic Communications for encroaching on its turf.

Logic, which is owned by local telephone provider Bermuda Telephone Co. Ltd.

(BTC), said last year it was planning on using newly developed technology to allow customers to talk over the Internet without having to go through a computer.

Apparently, the company has started offering the service to some customers at rates below long distance charges levied by Cable & Wireless and TeleBermuda International Ltd.

Cable & Wireless is complaining that Logic is not licensed to provide long-distance voice service. Telecommunications Minister E.T. (Bob) Richards said the Telecommunications Commission was dealing with the matter. On a more general level he acknowledged that technology was breaking down the barriers between the traditional telephone providers and Internet service providers.

He said Government was looking at the issue but also had to consider the huge amounts of money the long distance providers had spent in setting up the infrastructure.

"It's a moving target,'' he told The Royal Gazette yesterday. "The interests of the community have to be taken into account. Overseas companies have invested million of dollars in infrastructure some of which we have insisted they spend. It is incumbent on us to insure the investments that they made is not jeopardised.'' No one from Logic or BTC was available for comment.

A press release from the Department of Telecommunications subsequently stated that a carrier authorised to provide data only services is not authorised to provide telephone services.

As stated previously in The Royal Gazette , the issue has been coming to the fore in the US as companies last year began to use Internet technology to repackage voice more efficiently and send it down telephone lines for a cheaper price. The software technology means Internet service providers like Logic and North Rock Communications have the ability to encroach on the telephone voice services provided by Cable & Wireless and TeleBermuda.

Logic and North Rock are licensed as value added data providers, which rent connection capacity from telephone service carriers such as Cable & Wireless.

Internet technology efficiently uses this capacity by breaking up data into pieces, spewing it down the cable pipe where it finds its way to a destination, and is then repackaged into the correct order where it appears on a computer screen.

Over the last few years software companies began doing the same thing with voice. Currently a telephone call ties up one line as nothing else can be sent back and forth. The new technology allows voice to be broken down sent down the wire and then reformatted as sound. This means many telephone calls can use the same line at the same time.

Various software programs have allowed people to do so on their computers for a few years now, although the quality has been poor and the connection slow.

The software companies have taken the technology to the next logical step.

What's new is software that takes the computer out of the picture, at least at both ends of the conversation. A person uses their telephone as normal by dialling a special local number which connects them into the Internet service provider's computer. Once connected they dial the long distance number they wanted and speak normally over the Internet.

The issue has been coming to the fore in the US. US-based IDT Corp, for example, last year announced it was offer Internet phone services for as low as five cents a minute for long-distance in 50 US cities. IDT's technology allows callers to dial a local access number then enter a password and the number they're calling. The Department of Telecommunications stated in its press release that the issue was a difficult one for carriers to face.

"The department acknowledges that in a digital environment it is difficult for a carrier to distinguish between voice and data communications,'' the press release stated. "In determining whether or not a telephone service is being offered a key element would involve the identification to the customer of an offering particularly where that offering is separately prices. If a carrier is licensed to provide data only services and offers telephone services it would, in the opinion of the department, be in breach of its licence.'' E.T. (Bob) Richards