SBC prodding companies toward VoIP
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SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS - SBC Communications is starting to herd customers toward using data networks to carry their voice traffic, a path that will lead to corporate customers buying their voice and data services over one access line.
SBC's move will encourage corporate customers to carry voice on their private data networks by selling these firms Cisco and Nortel Networks voice-over IP gear, SBC says.
So far SBC is not pushing IP voice traffic onto its public phone network. That will come later, says Robert Rosenberg, president of Insight Research, a telecom market research firm in Parsippany, N.J. Carriers in general will try to put all types of customer traffic onto single, packet-based networks rather than run separate circuit switched networks just for voice.
"Everyone realizes the circuit-switched game is up," Rosenberg says. "The entire business no longer has to do with switching; it has to do with transmission. This lowers the cost of transmission, so you go for it."
Later this year and through the first half of next year, SBC plans to sell the hardware to firms so they can transition from circuit voice to packet voice. SBC has chosen equipment from Cisco and Nortel, and is recommending a variety of gear to let end users make the transition several ways.
Customers who want to install IP PBXs in their firms will be steered toward Cisco's Architecture for Voice, Video and Integrated Data. That service is being rolled out slowly starting in the first quarter of 2001, with general availability by midyear, says Ihor Zyga, SBC's vice president of marketing for business access services.
For firms that have PBXs but want to make a move toward IP voice, SBC will sell the Nortel Meridian Gateway card that fits into Meridian PBXs. The card converts voice traffic into IP packets and feeds it into the corporate router to be sent to other corporate sites.
SBC will recommend Nortel's Business Communications Manager for branch offices and small companies to provide IP support as well as features including unified messaging and call center.
SBC will also offer IP Centrex services that supply PBX features from SBC's network. SBC is in the process of qualifying Lucent and Nortel gear to support the service with plans to roll it out by mid-2001.
SBC: www.sbc.com
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