Verizon extends business VoIP services

Verizon last week unveiled an addition to its business VoIP services designed to lower the barrier to entry for new adopters.

The carrier's IP Flexible T-1 service is intended to make the move to IP telephony more cost-effective for remote offices. It's an outgrowth of Verizon's IP Integrated Access service, one of several VoIP offerings inherited from the acquisition of MCI. The service lets sites with fewer than 24 phone lines maintain their existing analog key systems and calling features while upgrading to a converged environment that carries voice and data over a single connection.

It will help companies gain increased data throughput utilizing voice compression and enhanced network performance made possible by dynamic bandwidth allocation, Verizon says.

"It's doing that stepped approach in which you may not want a full-blown hosted solution, but you certainly want to take advantage of some of the things that IP brings to the table," says Will Stofega, an analyst at IDC. "People can't all of a sudden do a flash cut over to something totally new."

Stofega says IP Flexible T-1 will go up against Qwest's OneFlex VoIP service, the base offering of XO's XOptions Flex, and Covad's vPBX and PBXi business VoIP services, among others.

In addition to the T-1 VoIP service, Verizon has added more choices in customer equipment, dedicated toll-free-over-IP features and managed fraud protection to its VoIP offerings.

The company also has added a suite of Polycom IP phones for its Hosted IP Centrex customers. The new Polycom phones can be purchased or leased.

The dedicated toll-free service lets customers use a single connection for their incoming toll-free calls and their outbound VoIP traffic. For a toll-free call beginning in a TDM environment, Verizon will translate the traffic to VoIP, routing the voice call over an IP network to terminate over a customer's IP connection.

This lets companies consolidate more traffic over shared, integrated IP trunks vs. reserving large dedicated public switched telephone network circuits for incoming toll-free services, Verizon says.

The fraud-protection service for managed IP telephony customers is designed to protect businesses from illegitimate use of their IP PBX phone systems. It includes a proactive monitoring capability that detects and notifies customers of suspect or fraudulent calling, to stem potential business losses associated with misuse of an enterprise network.

The fraud-protection service can be administered by Verizon or customized to recognize and report irregular activities associated with a customer's business.

IP Flexible T-1 costs $625 per month for dedicated Internet access. A simultaneous call feature can be added for an additional $35 per month. Prices include customer premises equipment, unlimited local and domestic long-distance to 150 metropolitan areas, and a subset of user and enterprise-wide features.

IP Integrated Access costs $675 per month for dedicated Internet access, with simultaneous call capabilities priced at an additional $35 per month. This pricing includes unlimited local and domestic long-distance to 150 metropolitan areas, and a full set of user and enterprise-wide features.