The bargain-priced long distance minutes, purchased from a New York City trading exchange, can slice in half a business's long distance phone bill, said Robert Crandall, director of network services for Converged Communications.

"Right now we are focusing on voice over Internet protocol," Crandall said. "We can save large businesses 50 percent of their long distance bill," he said.

"Simply less" long distance service is one of the mainstays of Converged Communications, along with "simply fast" Internet service. To date, their major customers have been small hotels and inns in the Anchorage area. Other services include e-mail accounts, Web site hosting, off-site storage and managed service.

The company also offers to replace wired network connections between company offices with wireless connections. "It's not like regular voice telephone. It's a data line," said Dave Taylor, vice president of network services and operations manager.

Voice over IP service, already popular in the Lower 48 states, was a natural move for Crandall, who has spent more than two decades of his life in communications. After working "for practically every telephone company in the state," plus Time Warner in Hawaii and Hewlett Packard in California, Crandall said he decided in April 2003 it was time to bring Internet telephone service to Alaska.

"We have as much or more experience in wireless than anybody else in town," Crandall said. Part of that experience was hard earned by experimenting with different wireless systems, to see how they fared with Alaska's high wind loads, terrain and foliage, he said. Then there was the competition for the same unlicensed wireless frequency, or wi-fi, which is also used on the radar of ships coming to the Port of Anchorage.

"We tried five wireless systems and finally found one that works in Alaska."

He spent a full year researching the plan. Then he joined forces with his brother, Amiel Crandall, who had a management background with nonprofit organizations, and Taylor, a veteran radio disk jockey whom they met at church. Amiel Crandall is the company's chief operating officer.

Though relatively small, with a full-time staff of eight, Converged Communications is priced competitively because it doesn't have the overhead of larger firms, Amiel Crandall said.

"Normally when we put in bids, we're the low bidder," Robert Crandall said. "We shop around to buy our equipment and it allows us to be more flexible. An example is long distance phone minutes the company purchases from the trading exchange, Arbinet, in New York. Those phone minutes delivered via the Internet are not subject to tax, Taylor said.

A current plan offered by Converged Communications advertises rates of 7 cents a minute for calls within Alaska and Hawaii, and 5 cents a minute for calls to the continental United States and Canada.

"We can definitely save our clients money, particularly on in-state calls, and we provide faster, more reliable service for the Internet as well," Taylor said. "The service would be most appealing to businesses that do a lot of international calling and a large foreign population with family ties to Asia, Mexico and Europe, people who make a lot of long distance calls," he said.

Despite the promise of low rates, the going has not been easy for Converged Communications. "All the sales we've gotten we've worked at," Robert Crandall said. "Now we are getting more and more visibility," with antennas on the Inlet Towers and the Westmark Hotel in Anchorage, he said.

Along with the next generation technology and low rates, the owners of Converged Communications said their big selling point was old fashioned customer service, styled to meet needs of its individual customers.

"You get a little more customer service with the little guy than the big guy," Amiel Crandall said. "We're able to attend to their needs a little bit quicker."

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