The four flavors of IP telephony for businesses unveiled by the Basking Ridge, New Jersey-based carrier are a re-branding and extension of the MCI Advantage range from the global network operator acquired by Verizon last year. That offering was only in the US and was mainly IP Centrex, said John Irvine, VP of international marketing for Verizon Business.
The new suite comprises Hosted IP Centrex (fully hosted PBX functionality on shared carrier infrastructure); IP Trunking (IP connectivity and PSTN breakout for on-premises IP PBXes); Integrated Access (IP connectivity, via an emulation module, for conventional PBXes); and Managed IP PBX (Verizon takes over the management and/or ownership of a device and makes it part of its hosted offering).
Irvine said the portfolio of services, which is already available in the US, Canada, South Africa, and Australia, can now also be taken in five countries in Europe, with five more to be added by the end of the quarter. The plan is to make it available in the UK, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, Austria, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Norway, Spain, and Sweden, all 12 of which are countries in which Verizon has a license for full voice services.
This means full number portability so that customers can retain their existing phone numbers when they switch to the Verizon service, as well as support for emergency numbers and for the legal interception of calls by police and security forces.
Irvine said the offering leapfrogs the competition in terms of coverage, but said the main constraints on further expansion are regulatory issues. We haven’t seen any off-the-shelf VoIP offerings from AT&T or BT, he said. They tend to cobble something together on an ad hoc basis when they get a customer request. He added that neither of these companies nor the other main competitor, France Telecom’s Equant, have full voice licenses in as many countries across Europe as Verizon.
The wholesale offering is called VoIP Gateway and enables SIP service providers to buy IP transport to as near as possible where they need PSTN break-out, avoiding long-distance and international calling costs. Henrik Liungman, marketing director for international partner solutions at Verizon Business, said the service is available in the UK, Germany, and Switzerland, with plans to roll it out in the Netherlands, Sweden, France, and Belgium by the end of the quarter.
