Ex-Ameritech President Joins Specialty VoIP Company

Former Ameritech President Dwayne Goldsmith has joined Detroit-based Inflexion Communications Corp., a Voice-over-Internet Protocol specialist aiming to provide the service to underserved areas.

The company will address metropolitan areas which are underserved by wireline service, specifically going after the more than 5 million households that can't afford circuit-switched phone service.

Goldsmith, who will serve as chief executive of Inflexion, said that consumer business will focus on low-income consumers using prepaid cards. Inflexion will offer two types of services to businesses and government. The FlexIP program will provide IP services to companies who have existing circuit-switched PBX equipment on site. The XtendIP offering will explore ways for municipal governments and development bureaus to extend existing phone services to redeveloping areas. The idea is to use IP services to lower overall communications costs.

Inflexion uses Broadsoft as a hosted VoIP solution, in conjunction with several vendors' customer premises equipment.

"It's about finding ways to redirect dollars into initiatives that can generate commerce," Goldsmith said. "The IP backbone becomes a vehicle for economic development."Fleet Bank provided the original funding for Inflexion. When the company was founded in 2001, the concept was to use softswitch architectures to take advantage of the demise of circuit-based competitive local exchange carriers, creating a second-generation environment.

Goldsmith said that as the founders examined the opportunities in depressed metropolitan areas, "we developed the idea of Inflexion as an acquisition vehicle and network deployer."

Last September, Inflexion acquired three prepaid specialists -- Easyphone, Local Lines America Inc. and InTouch Communications Inc. -- to launch a national consumer prepaid VoIP service. Inflexion's enterprise and government businesses are launching in February, in a rollout that includes a special seed-investment fund for cities requiring special help in moving to next-generation communication services.

Inflexion also is working with such wireless LAN and broadband vendors as Proxim Inc. to use wireless services as gap fillers to existing wireline VoIP.