Cedar Point Communications has tapped cable vet Andy Paff as the IP telephony vendor's president and CEO.

Paff most recently was chief technology officer at Colorado-based Broadband Services Inc., where he headed up the company's MapVantage division. He has also held exec slots with Antec Corp. (now Arris) and Worldbridge Broadband Services, which merged with C-COR.net in January 2000.

Paff, who starts at Cedar Point officially on December 15, will head up the company's day-to-day operations and help the Derry, N.H.-based company drive deployments of the SAFARI C³, a product that combines several PacketCable components into one device. Cedar Point, which has a trial relationship with Comcast Corp. on its resume, has yet to announce any commercial deployments.

Paff will become the first person to hold the CEO and president title at Cedar Point. Those operations duties have been handled by founder Mark Galvin, who will continue to serve as Cedar Point's chairman.

Paff, who has some cable telephony experience to draw from during his Antec days, said the time is right for the service to take off, noting recent deployments from MSOs such as Time Warner Cable and Cablevision Systems Corp.

"The [cable] industry is ready to begin VoIP deployment and the commencement of the business," he said. "Our challenge will be to support...the operators and how they approach the business at the local level and really scale the service."