BOSTON - MCI used the Fall VON 2005 Conference & Expo in Boston last week to announce a Managed IP PBX service with partners NEC and Cisco . The service is targeted at companies with 200 to 5,000 users and complements other VoIP offerings in MCI's Advantage Portfolio, including its Hosted IP Centrex service.

One of MCI's strengths is its full portfolio of VoIP offerings, said Nancy Gofus, senior vice president of IP Services. MCI now can either install and manage your IP PBX or host those capabilities in the cloud, and integrate your legacy voice gear using the existing IP Integrated Access service.

Customers can expect to pay $250 to $350 per user for NEC's upfront planning and implementation work for the Managed IP PBX service, and about $650 per user for Cisco's IP telephony gear, said MCI's Jim DeMerlis, vice president of managed network services.

MCI's ongoing monitoring, fault isolation, maintenance and optimization of the resultant network will cost $7.50 per handset, per month for up to 200 handsets, with that dropping to $5 per handset, per month when 1,000 sets are managed and to around $3 for still larger implementations.

The company will pitch Managed IP PBX, promising cost savings, reduced complexity and the ability to leave the driving to MCI, DeMerlis said.

"We have 3,200 managed WAN customers today we can leverage," said Laurie Shook, director of IP Telephony.

These are mid- to high-end commercial companies that already trust us, DeMerlis added. "Now they can look to us for all their VoIP needs."

With Managed IP PBX available in 52 countries from the get-go, analysts questioned whether MCI was changing focus, emphasizing this new approach more than the previously announced Hosted IP Centrex service. The latter is available in the U.S. today and won't be rolled out globally until next year.

IP Centrex requires investment in the network, Gofus said, and that takes time. "With the Managed IP PBX offering, NEC and Cisco already have people on the ground in 52 countries."

Gofus said MCI is working on interoperability between the Managed IP PBX and Hosted IP Centrex services, but doesn't anticipate any problems, because all are based on the same Cisco infrastructure.

Analysts also asked whether Verizon's acquisition of MCI, expected to be completed in 2006, will disrupt these investment plans. "We're working with Verizon, describing our portfolio and direction," Gofus said. "The message back is spend more, not less. This global portfolio is a great fit with Verizon's strengths."