Tuesday, May 15, 2007

Biz VoIP Launching

Andy, Om, and Voxilla are all touting that now that Microsoft is in the Business VoIP game with its Office Communications Server, Biz VoIP will blast off. If anything, this may just be a cannibolization of the existing players, as people leave XO, Qwest, GX, iBasis, et al to do it themselves in-house with M$ and some new nifty hardware. (You know geeks love to be able to touch/feel their boxes constantly, even when it is inefficient / expensive / stupid to still do it in-house).

I think they all missed the real news:

Sprint is expanding its close ties with cable MSOs to launch business voice services to small businesses requiring up to 12 lines. The service will support standard calling features, directory listings, voicemail, auto-attendant, find me/follow me, voicemail to email, and 911. Initially, Sprint will rollout VoCable business services over systems operated by Time Warner, Suddenlink, Baja Broadband, and Millennium Digital Media. Sprint is a major wholesale provider of residential VoIP for cable companies, providing services to 14 MSOs that represent 34 million homes passed and 1.7 million VoCable subscribers. The mobile giant's annual revenue from VoCable has grown to $400 million annually. In addition to the top MSOs, Sprint is also providing services to smaller cable operators such as Antietam Cable in Maryland (52,000 homes passed) and MTC Cable in New York (5,000 homes passed). The Sprint VoIP network is based on a model of buying access to transport traffic from its mobile cell sites to its own backbone network. [source]

No comments: