Cable & Wireless first to market with IP Voice service in the UK



-/June 21, 2004 Wi-Fi Technology News/-Cable & Wireless, a leading provider of communications services to UK businesses, (16 June 2004) confirmed that it is to announce the first-ever off-the-shelf Internet Protocol (IP) Voice service for UK businesses at the Enterprise Networks event, on 5 & 6 July at Olympia, London. Called Cable & Wireless IP Voice, this important industry first will allow business customers to realise the benefits of a converged network by combining their existing telephony systems with the latest IP technology in a single infrastructure.

Cable & Wireless is a UK market leader in business class IP telephony and VoIP services where organisations have replaced their private automatic branch exchanges (PABXs) with IP server based infrastructures linked by Internet Protocol Virtual Private Network with Quality of Service (IP-VPN QoS) networks.

In addition, Cable & Wireless has significant experience in the area of complex voice virtual private networks (VPNs) and managed private branch exchange (PBX) services for the larger multi-site business customer. Organisations now want the "best of both worlds" by having a mechanism to seamlessly integrate both networks. Cable & Wireless will provide this capability with its new IP Voice service, specifically designed to link the new IP world and existing voice world.

Cable & Wireless UK chief executive, Royston Hoggarth, said: "We are delighted to be the first to market in the UK with a managed IP voice service for business customers.

"IP Voice expands upon our current, successful IP telephony solution as we deliver the integrated platform for data, IP and voice services that our business clients are increasingly demanding.

"Voice will be the killer application to drive UK businesses towards wholesale adoption of IP. For businesses already using IP-VPN QoS, the next step in their journey to an integrated communications infrastructure is to migrate their voice networks to IP."

Many organisations already derive significant value from the use of sophisticated voice VPN services, for example, by using centralised operators and distributed call centres. Organisations want to retain this value without having to have a separate voice VPN - they want the best of both worlds.

Cable & Wireless IP Voice achieves this with the following clear benefits for UK businesses:

Network and infrastructure cost savings

- Cable & Wireless IP Voice enables organisations to replace separate voice and data VPNs with a single IP network without losing any voice functionality. The service supports all private voice protocols commonly used in businesses today, so that companies can leverage their existing telecoms infrastructure while planning their migration to IP. Analogue handsets can be re-used and Local Area Network (LAN) upgrades can take place incrementally

- A combined infrastructure for voice, video and data can reduce the network to a single access circuit per site

- Customers can move away from site-based equipment and consolidate network applications centrally, achieving hardware and management efficiencies

Business flexibility

- Organisations can now migrate each site on their new combined network to IP enabled PBXs or full IP telephony at the pace that suits them to provide the maximum functional and financial benefits

- The ability to access calls from a wide range of devices at any point on the network increases the opportunities for flexible, remote working and hot-desking, making it simple to move or change offices

Productivity improvements

Customers will have the capability to distribute call centre agents across their organisation, to integrate the company's dial plan with the corporate directory and to move towards video-conferencing and unified messaging as standard desktop services for all employees

Cable & Wireless is already working with major organisations such as Heinz and Marks & Spencer as they look to cut costs and control complexity by migrating their networks to IP

Notes:

In the current VoIP arena, there are two main types of services: the first aimed at residential users and the second at small/medium sized enterprises.

The first type, examples of which are offered by Skype, Vonage and BT, are aimed primarily at residential broadband customers, and are sometimes referred to as "broadband voice". The services are characterised by the low cost of calls, but they do not offer any guarantee of quality, and often have limited interconnection to other fixed and mobile voice networks.

The second type of service is Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) based, and is designed for small/medium-sized enterprises. These are characterised by higher capacity access than ADSL (typically they would use SDSL, Ethernet or private circuit access) and provide additional features for the user, with a limited ability to interwork with more complex voice networks.

The new IP Voice service, to be launched by Cable & Wireless at Enterprise Networks on 5 July, will address businesses with complex, multi-site voice, data and IP infrastructure. These customers are characterised by having a great variety of PBX systems, some IP enabled PBXs and a few IP telephony systems. Neither the broadband voice nor the SIP-based services are suitable for customers with complex, multi-site requirements. Cable & Wireless IP Voice will address their needs and provides the final cornerstone of the route to convergence, allowing customers to realise the benefits of a converged network without compromising the quality and integrity of their voice traffic.

Cable & Wireless IP Voice will be enabled by Nortel Networks Succession Communications Server (CS) 2000 superclass softswitches. These softswitches provide true carrier class circuit-to-packet migration solutions enabling a full set of business telephony services as well as local, tandem and long distance capability on a single platform. The Succession CS 2000 superclass softswitch also provides carrier-grade reliability and scalability, and regulatory features including lawful intercept and number portability.

About Cable & Wireless
Cable & Wireless is one of the world's leading international communications companies. It provides voice, data and IP (Internet Protocol) services to business and residential customers, as well as services to other telecoms carriers, mobile operators and providers of content, applications and internet services.

Cable & Wireless' principal operations are in the United Kingdom, continental Europe, Japan, the Caribbean, Panama, the Middle East and Macau.

For more information about Cable & Wireless, go to http://www.cw.com.