SBC Communications hopes to attract companies striving to cut costs with IP Centrex and DSL Centrex services it unveiled last week.
The offerings are designed to save customers money by letting them use one infrastructure for voice and data.
SBC is the first major carrier to introduce an IP Centrex offering, but industry analysts don't expect business customers to flock to the service.
"Centrex services overall have not done well," says Thomas Nolle, president of consulting firm CIMI and a Network World columnist. "It was popular in the '80s but has declined steadily over the past 10 years. I think the service providers are looking at [IP Centrex] on an almost experimental basis to see if it will make Centrex more appealing."
With a Centrex service, customers get the same features they'd expect to get from a private PBX, but instead of the business hosting and managing the PBX, the service provider hosts and manages the service.
SBC's offering, called Centrex IP, is based on the Lucent iMerge Centrex Feature Gateway and initially will be available in Chicago; Hartford, Conn.; Houston; Los Angeles; and Sacramento.
Customers will be able to make moves, adds and changes through SBC's existing Web-based CentrexMate interface. SBC also is offering a Centrex Custom Calling feature that lets end users get caller ID information on outside calls.
For remote workers, SBC is introducing Centrex DSL, which gives users the same features as an office phone and a DSL data connection over one line. The data connection can run to either the Internet or back into a company's network.
Although SBC is the first regional Bell operating company to announce an IP Centrex offering, smaller providers have done so, says Tom Jenkins, an analyst with TeleChoice. They include PingTone, AccessLine, TalkingNets and GoBeam.
Centrex IP will be available in September. Tariffs for the service have not been approved, but SBC says pricing will be competitive with its existing Centrex offerings. Centrex DSL is available in Connecticut and will be rolled out to other markets this summer.
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