Verizon details vision for futuristic services

Home phone, work phone, cellphone, voice mailboxes, e-mail, and instant messaging all interconnected in a "communications command center" that once would have been imagined only on the bridge of Star Trek's USS Enterprise.

That's part of Verizon Communications Inc.'s vision for 2004 -- along with a $1 billion national expansion of a wireless data network fast enough to bring movie-quality video to cellphones and laptop computers.

After revealing plans Wednesday for a multibillion-dollar reconstruction of its US telephone network, Verizon Communications Inc. yesterday began detailing the new services it will be rolling out this year, built around a new software platform dubbed "iobi."

Verizon plans to begin rolling out iobi in larger markets, possibly including Greater Boston, in the first half of this year, followed in the second half by its "Verizon One" telecom console that features a touch-screen computer, cordless phone, and high-speed Internet access and wireless home networking router.

Where and when the services will be deployed -- and how much they will cost -- are still undetermined.

Initially the phone-number-linking services would be limited to Verizon phone customers, who also include 36 million wireless subscribers.

But speaking from a major consumer electronics trade show in Las Vegas, Verizon chief executive Ivan G. Seidenberg said, "We believe we are on the brink of an exciting new era in communication" that will help people consolidate and cross-link the many modes of talking and writing they now use.

Many of the specific features of iobi have been available for a few years, including "find me/follow me" phone services that can ring home, office, and wireless phones simultaneously to help people avoid missing calls and so-called unified mailboxes that can bring in voice mail as sound files in an e-mail inbox.

But as the nation's largest phone company, with over 30 million residential and 3 million business customers, Verizon is poised to drive far greater mass-market usage of the services, which would enable people to do things such as:

Schedule times to divert phone calls from a wireless phone to a home line or vice versa.

Build an online directory of contacts by saving numbers from caller ID and place subsequent phone calls just by clicking on a name.

Have a short text message sent to their wireless phone when a specific caller has left a voicemail for them.

Record short voice messages and send them to several recipients simultaneously as one-way phone calls.

Have a voice mail automatically transcribed into text sent to a handheld Blackberry communications device or e-mail account.

Engineers at Verizon's Waltham labs handled much of the research and development work on iobi and the Verizon One unit.

Also, about 100 Newton-area residents and business owners participated in one of a handful of national consumer panels last year to help develop the services, Verizon executives said.

"It's a very nifty product," said Jeffrey Bray, a telecommunications analyst with the David L. Babson money management firm in Cambridge, who reviewed the service at a recent confidential briefing for analysts. "They have to be careful not to overwhelm you with the number of features it has when they go to marketing, but it looks like there is enough in there that there could be a real viral effect once you start selling it to different groups" who begin explaining its potential to friends and business associates, Bray said.

Besides the innovations on the phone and e-mail side, Verizon also said it plans to begin expanding availability nationwide of an $80-a-month high-speed wireless data service it began offering in the Washington, D.C., and San Diego metropolitan areas last summer. Called Broadband Access, the service offers peak data speeds of 2 megabits per second, comparable to a cable modem or digital subscriber line broadband connection, and typical coverage at 300 to 500 kilobits per second. Verizon estimates it will spend $1 billion expanding Broadband Access, a significant portion of which could go to startup Airvana Inc. of Chelmsford, which makes key components and software used to upgrade Nortel Networks wireless base station gear for the service.Peter J. Howe can be reached at howe@globe.com.