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Savvis Touts Voice Management Services
by Denise Pappalardo, Network World, 08/18/03
Savvis Communications is expected to announce "a wide-ranging partnership with AccessLine Communications this week that will result in a suite of new hosted voice services for customers and increased traffic over the Savvis backbone.
The service provider is teaming with AccessLine to offer its suite of Voice Application Services to Savvis' managed service business customers. The services let users migrate the headache of managing a voice network off-site while also upgrading to a voice-over-IP environment that promises more flexibility, according to company executives.
The offering includes hosted Switched 800 Service, Conferencing Service, Mobility Teleworking, Disaster Recovery, Auto-attendant and IP Voice VPN.
"We wanted to offer our customers voice services, but the current trend of teaming with a hardware vendor didn't make sense," says Rob McCormick, CEO at Savvis. With these services, users can upgrade to new services without the cost of deploying new equipment, he says.
The services are hosted off-site on gear developed by AccessLine and accessed either through the traditional public switched telephone network or, more likely with most new customers, over Savvis' IP backbone.
Hosted IP voice services are growing in popularity. This year, users are expected to spend $281 million on these services, according to IDC, and by 2007 that figure is expected to jump up to $2.8 billion, the firm predicts.
Savvis is setting up a "peer" between its network and AccessLine's network infrastructure so new Savvis customers will have direct access to AccessLine's hosting environment.
AccessLine plans to migrate all its hosting gear into Savvis facilities, McCormick says. While there is not a specific timetable as to when the cutover will be complete, McCormick says he expects the transition to take about six months.
The migration lets AccessLine transfer its existing customers an IP network, while also partnering with a service provider that's focused on high-quality managed services, says Doug Johnson, CEO at AccessLine.
Johnson says the company plans to move most of its customers, but some will remain on AccessLine's legacy network.
AccessLine offers hosted voice services to 100,000 customer, including American Express, IBM and Sun. The majority of the company's customers still are running most of their services over traditional TDM voice networks, but many are moving toward IP, which is where Savvis fits in, Johnson says.
Savvis operates a national IP network that runs over ATM. The service provider has 2,000 managed service customers that will be able to upgrade any of their existing services to support Savvis' new voice offerings using their existing network connectivity.
Tina Mayland
VP-Marketing
SAVVIS Communications
12851 Worldgate Drive
Herndon, VA 20170
703-234-8195
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