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Carrier Services
Verizon Business combines SIP trunking with Microsoft OCS R2
Enhanced unified communications platform over VoIP could become a game-changer for business messaging and telephony
by Doug Allen
Hot on the heels of Microsoft’s recent OCS R2 launch, Verizon Business has combined the unified communications system with native SIP trunking to create the first such hybrid service available on a wide scale. Microsoft’s Office Communications Server was initially released last year, but was upgraded to support SIP trunking last month, something a number of industry analysts predicted could be a major step forward for business customers looking to link IM, presence, Web conferencing and VoIP software to VoIP trunks. Indeed, although Verizon is the first to offer the new combo, Global Crossing and Sprint Nextel are certified to support Microsoft OCS 2007 with their VoIP services.
“SIP trunking is important because it unlocks the potential for the conferencing and collaboration server to connect to carrier VoIP services, which in turn access the public switched telephone network,” writes Brian Washburn, a research director at Current Analysis, in a recent intelligence report. “Microsoft’s OCS Enterprise Voice application — one of the servers in the Microsoft OCS 2007 grouping — can natively provide call handling, but that does not make it a full-feature telephone system, nor does it make PBXs obsolete…
“But Microsoft OCS 2007 does not need to ‘beat’ the traditional telephone system to become an important communications toolkit for enterprises. Service providers juggling a limited amount of resources might be skeptical about whether to take the time and allocate the resources to refine and certify their SIP trunking for compliance with Microsoft’s unified communications solution. But Microsoft’s huge influence over business tools and file formats suggest the software vendor has a vast potential audience of enterprise customers that would consider adding both SIP trunking and managed services for Microsoft OCS, at a minimum translating into opportunities to sell more and higher-capacity SIP trunks.”
The new service offers users a number of benefits. Available globally in 12 countries, it can be set up in any deployment option: provider-hosted, dedicated, or managed, and interworks with most existing customer VoIP set-ups, such as IP trunking, IP Centrex and managed PBX. Thus far, rival offerings from Sprint Nextel and Global Crossing do not provide a hosted option. On the CPE side, the OCS R2 is certified interoperable with Cisco and Nortel PBX systems. And overall, OCS R2 with SIP Trunking allows Verizon to package deep-portfolio combinations of services that include server management, security, IT support desk, network and professional services. Pricing starts at $2.50 a month per user, with a minimum customer order of 500 seats, as well as additional fees based on the services being managed and total user size of the contract.
“While there are other operators that have launched OCS R2, such as Sprint and Global Crossing, their fundamental objective was to sell more SIP trunks,” writes Dustin Kehoe, Principal Analyst at Current Analysis, in a recent intelligence report. “The difference in this announcement is that Verizon Business is attempting to use OCS R2 to offer a full range of hosted, dedicated and managed solutions leveraging its infrastructure, server management, security, IT support desk and professional services organization. The launch of OCS R2 plays to many of Verizon Business’s key strengths, but is also a strong fit for how Verizon Business wants to portray its capabilities to its customers from the management of infrastructure to the applications that support key business operations.”
“Verizon Business was one of the only providers that offering hosted IP Centrex on an international basis,” Kehoe continued. “While most providers took a ‘wait and see’ approach for SIP trunking, the company went ahead and started developing a global capability. AT present, it offers SIP trunking (as well as hosted IP Centrex) in 12 countries and this gives OCS R2 immediate credibility. The company is continuing to increase its SIP footprint to more European and APAX countries and well ahead of the competition.”
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