AT&T and Avaya Form VoIP Partnership

VoIPNews.com : T&T and Avaya recently formed a partnership to provide VoIP transition assistance to companies who are ready to migrate from PSTN. The companies aim to provide a set of services including design, implementation, operation, ongoing management and maintenance. The idea is that many businesses and governments will be adopting VoIP solutions, but may have trouble making the transition. This alliance aims to assist with that transition and provide solutions that will make it at smooth as possible.

The partnership seeks to provide a single source for the seamless integration of IP-based voice and data networks worldwide, reduced cost, flexibility to deploy VoIP at the businesses convenience, 24 hour customer support, AT&T Global Client Support Center and Avaya help center integration, and web management capabilities using AT&T BusinessDirect Web portal.

A Yankee Group report cited in an AT&T press release states, “VoIP has shifted from an emerging technology to a critical busines ssolution," according to Paris Burstyn, Director at Yankee Group. "We estimate the business VoIP market will grow at a CAGR of 31.4 percent to reach almost $3.3 billion in 2010. VoIP and IP telephony solutions appeal to businesses as they provide an excellent converged platform for voice and data, and improve the manageability of communications. In working with AT&T, customers can leverage the reliability and scalability of its global IP-MPLS network in support of their solution.”

Both companies have been working on interoperability in the past two years, in order to lay the groundwork for such a convergence. Using Session Initiation Protocol (SIP), AT&T and Avaya have built their architecture around a common standard with the goal of providing secure and efficient networks.

The advantage of this alliance is that it would offer people who are not in the emerging technology market the advantage of staying ahead of the curve. As VoIP becomes more mainstream and emerges as the new standard for business and residential telephony, having solutions to migration will become more integral for adoption. This alliance has intervened in the process to help fill the void and are transitioning businesses from legacy telephones to VoIP with the least amount of productivity loss possible.