This Week in Telecom: May 12th
This Week in Telecom is a weekly news round-up on VoipReview.org that aims to give our readers a fast and easy way to catch up on the latest news and top stories that are trending in the voice and telecommunications space. Check in each and every Friday to find out more about stories you may have missed in regards to new companies, mergers, trends, and other telecom advancements.
Alianza Partners with BARC to Deliver VoIP Services
BARC Connects, a wholly owned broadband subsidiary of Virginia-based BARC Electric Cooperative, has teamed up with Alianza, a cloud voice platform provider, in delivering a full suite of residential and commercial phone services to customers in the Virginia area. Before commencing with their fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) project, BARC Connects surveyed a number of its customers and found that most of them believed that rich, reliable voice services were still applicable and a must-have. BARC also believed that offering this service would add margin-rich revenue as well. And thus, they sided with Alianza to help distribute their VoIP solution because the company and its services "best aligned with the service launch plans."
“With this member-backed investment in fiber, BARC Connects is providing a great service to its community,” commented Justin Cooper, Alianza’s Vice President of Business. “Our solution will help them achieve financial goals and deliver excellent service to their customers.”
Alianza offers Cloud Voice Platform, a carefully structured voice solution that helps to seamlessly and easily replace the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN). Defined as Voice Infrastructure as a Service, Cloud Voice Platform lets customers easily manage their VoIP service through an admin panel and utilize both powerful features and easy scalability to help support any network, on any device.
BroadSoft Introduces BroadCloud
Cloud PBX and UC provider BroadSoft is offering their service customers another option in the cloud realm: a platform-as-a-service (PaaS) called BroadCloud. Through the use of BroadCloud, partners and service providers can more easily offer BroadSoft Business applications to consumers because the deployment processes are simplified. Customers can choose from three different deployment options: Carrier Model (best for BroadSoft app use), PaaS (best for maximum control over the end-user experience), and Reseller Model (best for the most control over implementation, billing, maintenance, and support). This, in turn, helps service customers launch services faster, minimize overall risks, and place more of a focus on new and existing customers while BroadSoft handles the "heavy lifting". It adds a whole new level for service customers and partners that previously was limited to solely BroadWorks. Sources report that this PaaS opportunity was to be expected after the company's acquisition of VoIP company VoIP Logic late last year.
BroadSoft is a leader in their market with their BroadSoft Business portfolio, which provides cloud service and cloud applications like team collaboration, UC, and contact centers. Their latest offering will help to ease the stress placed on their partners, and therefore help bring in more potential clients and users.
CenturyLink Acquires New VoIP Contract
A long-standing company with an established customer base, CenturyLink recently acquired a contract that will allow them to start offering a Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) service to the General Services Administration's Federal Acquisition Service. The contract is valued at $1.3 million for the first year with four one-year options.
“CenturyLink’s VoIP service provides government agencies with an affordable, modern solution that accelerates agencies’ digital transformation, connects them to their stakeholders and maximizes commercial best practices,” said CenturyLink Senior Vice President and General Manager of Federal Solutions Erich Sanchack in a statement.
CenturyLink offers hosted VoIP to customers in three seat options (Basic, Standard, or Premium) and comes with IP handsets, unlimited local and long-distance calling, softphone capabilities, user and admin portals for easy access and customization, and more. Through the solution, users can work from anywhere through Remote Office, easily add users/seats depending on business needs, and manage their communications through enterprise-grade features like Simultaneous Ring or Anywhere Voicemail.
UC EXPO Scheduled for Next Week
From May 17th to the 18th, UC EXPO, Europe's largest unified communications and collaboration event, will be hosted in London, UK at ExCeL London. The focuses of this year's event will be both success and collaboration according to the UC EXPO website, with a keynote address from Alan Peasland, the Head of Technical Partnerships for Red Bull Racing, Snorre Kjesbu, the VP/GM for the Cisco Collaboration Endpoints Technology Group, as the second day's keynote speaker, and a full list of informative talks from executives from companies like Skype for Business, Google, Vodafone, Fuze, and more.
Select companies also offered a sneak peak as to what to expect next week. Yamaha subsidiary Revolabs unveiled that it will feature the new Yamaha CS-700, a solution that combines audio, video, and collaboration into a wall-mounted system. A first of its kind, the system "With the addition of the Yamaha CS-700 Video Sound Collaboration System to our UC portfolio, organizations can integrate the solutions that make sense for their environment and allow users to effectively communicate," shared Russell Harpham, EMEA sales director of Revolabs. German audio company Sennheiser will also be in attendance, showcasing professional audio solutions for unified communications environments. VOSS Solutions will also make an appearance, demonstrating their new enhancements to their UC management platform.