TELUS and Cisco Create Canada's First Carrier-Grade Hosted and Managed IP Telephony Service
November 17, 2003
Today Canadian service provider TELUS launched a carrier-grade hosted and managed Internet Protocol Telephony (IPT) service that is the first-of-its-kind in Canada. TELUS IP-One allows enterprises to reap the benefits of IPT without the worry of installing and managing special on-site equipment. IP-One is available initially to business customers in the largest Canadian markets, Ontario and Quebec, with plans to expand to other regions of Canada in 2004.
IPT is fast becoming a mainstream technology in the Canadian market. According to industry analysts, 36 per cent of all telephony systems sold in 2002 were IP-based and that figure is anticipated to rise to 48 per cent in 2003. From coast to coast Cisco has in excess of 400 Canadian IPT customers using approximately 170,000 IP phones.
News@Cisco asked John Seliga, vice-president, IP Solutions at TELUS and Lui Fogolini, vice-president, Service Provider Operations with Cisco Systems Canada, to talk about the launch of IP-One and the benefits of managed IPT.
You describe IP-One as a world-class managed IPT service. What benefits does it offer customers?
John Seliga: We think there are three core benefits. First, increased productivity and innovation; with the IP-One service they can do things with telephony that they simply couldn't do before. IP-One offers advanced call management features such as call forward, remote extension, truly integrated messaging, ad hoc conferencing and integration with corporate directories.
Second, cost savings occur on several fronts. For example, customers don't pay to add or modify employees. Applications like "Find me-Follow me" reduce expenses by cutting down on long distance charges incurred returning calls. And - importantly - by outsourcing the network to TELUS, customers don't incur network management costs.
Finally, our customers enjoy investment protection. They start with the initial suite of telephony applications, and as we roll out more, enterprises can simply add an application via a highly intuitive Web portal.
Can you tell us about the technology involved?
Lui Fogolini: Innovation is about making technology simple, and that's what we've done here. Together, TELUS and Cisco have developed a secure IP network that's complex yet transparent, layered voice applications on top, and made it seamless to the user.
IP-One can run over a variety of network access protocols, from T1 and DSL up to Ethernet - at 10 to 100 megabits plus. So it's scalable from an access perspective, and it's carrier class - capable of handling hundreds of thousands of users.
It's important to make it easy and minimize the disruption for customers, so the focus has been to take advantage of the proliferation of these new applications for the IPT market. IP-One implements them within the Intelligent Internet Data Center and provides access over the Web portal. So a customer just clicks on a service, and it's delivered over the pipes and controlled through the Internet portal. It's that simple.
John Seliga: And I'd just add that technology is at the heart of IP-One's proven quality, reliability, security and performance. It's been running in a rigorous production environment for more than a year, handling more than one million calls while meeting or surpassing standard industry requirements for reliability and performance.
We're relying on the leading IP technology that Cisco provides to ensure the Quality of Service (QoS) and the quality of the telephony experience from our Intelligent Internet Data Centers into the customer premises.
What led TELUS to develop IP-One?
John Seliga: TELUS set out on a path three years ago to release the power of IP for our customers. We realized it was becoming the grand unifier - the lingua franca across data, voice and wireless. We've used that common denominator to collapse our internal costs in delivering highly innovative applications to our customers.
For us it's about creating value at the confluence of data, voice and wireless. We have significant business in all those areas, and IP allows us to converge those three services. Most exciting of all: IP-One is just the beginning of the IP-based services in our "Innovation Pipeline."
At TELUS, our vision is that the future is friendly, and IP-One has been developed with that promise in mind. Customers get the benefits of the next generation without the headaches.
From the network technology provider's point of view, what's different about IP-One?
Lui Fogolini: Again, it's the simplification - and the self-provisioning. When we talk about outsourcing and making technology simple, it's about putting the intelligence where it's required and reaping the benefits of that. Having intelligence in the cloud lets you have a simple, full-featured service - at a much lower overall cost than would traditionally be possible.
IP-One is the fruit of two years of collaboration - it's been an evolution. We're truly treating voice as data and providing the required QoS; that's what gives this system the advantage.
Is this the future for the service provider market?
Lui Fogolini: Yes. It's the whole notion of convergence. The telecommunications industry is clearly transitioning from traditional voice services and circuit-switched networks to the delivery of converged services over more efficient packet-based networks. By offering converged applications over a converged infrastructure, leading service providers like TELUS are delivering innovative new services to meet customer needs, expanding their existing marketplace and driving profitability.
The critical thing is giving customers choice. With a carrier-grade service, organizations can outsource their IP communications, using it as a utility. And they can feel comfortable that they can outsource it safely. That's what IP-One offers Canadian businesses today.
