Norwood, Mass. city power utility to offer VoIP

The town of Norwood, Mass. is getting ready to debut its own VoIP service next month.

The service, which will be offered by Norwood's city-owned Norwood Light, will be available to all of the city's nearly 12,000 homes. Town accountant Robert Thornton tells the Quincy (Mass.) Patriot Ledger that 100 or so Norwood residents have already asked about the service.

The pricing sounds pretty attractive. Norwood Light customers who already on board with cable and Internet service from the municipal utility will pay $25 a month. A 500-minute-a-month plan will cost $15 a month.

Here's my prediction. If those cities that offer VoIP do so as a reseller of commercial VoIP services, these more established entities will need to ask themselves whether the reseller fees they collect from VoIP-offering municipal utilities will offset the loss of potential, and would-be, subscribers.