Service Providers using Cisco solutions to deliver voice over packet networks
HONG KONG, CHINA, December 6, 2000 - Cisco Systems Inc., the worldwide leader in networking for the Internet, today announced it has teamed with two Pan Asian service providers to enable the successful transport of millions of minutes of voice calls over the Internet. By relying on Cisco packet-based infrastructures, whether over the Internet or private backbone networks, these innovative service providers are giving their customers the same carrier-class voice quality of service they would get from public switched telephone networks.
CSIRO, an Australian scientific research organization, and AARNET (Australian Academic Research Network) worked closely with Cisco to build a next generation network that provides voice over IP (VOIP) services. The companies are using Cisco's award-winning AS5300 voice gateways, positioned at each CSIRO state office and connecting all PBXs over the AARNET backbone. AARNET introduced the Internet in Australia, and today is leading that country's introduction of voice telephony over the Internet.
M-Touch, an international simple resale operator in Seoul, Korea, is also now offering voice over IP services for its 100,000 subscribers, mostly financial trading companies. With Cisco New World Ecosystem partner Innet providing its international simple resale voice application, M-Touch relies on the Cisco VCO/4K programmable switch and Cisco AS5300 voice gateways to deliver its VoIP service - the first in Korea.
"Our customers needed a reliable, flexible and scalable solution that could handle growing volumes of 50,000 to 100,000 minutes per month," said Soo Bok Yoon, marketing manager at M-Touch.
"Service providers around the world are building scalable, carrier-grade VoIP networks to deliver robust New World voice services," said Kevin Kennedy, senior vice president and general manager, service provider line of business at Cisco. "They recognize that disruptive technologies, such as packet telephony, can help them gain significant market growth and increase profitability."
According to Probe Research, voice minutes carried over packet networks are expected to grow from 7.7 billion minutes in 2000 to more than 570 billion minutes by 2005. The exploding rise of packet-based telephony can be attributed to a number of factors, including: the deregulation of telecommunications networks; carriers' need to deploy services quickly to generate new sources of revenues; and dramatic improvements in quality and reliability of carrying voice over packet networks.
However, transporting voice is just one benefit of using a packet infrastructure. Forward-thinking carriers recognize that enhanced services such as unified communications, click to dial and Internet call waiting can only be met by building out converged networks that are packet rather than circuit-based.
