Connection Telecom to market with enterprise mobile VoIP offering
Rob Lith, business development director at Connection Telecom, says the Bria MVoIP app will be delivered as a managed, cloud-based offering, hosted at the company's Teraco-based data centre.
Technology maturation
Lith says MVoIP has become a viable proposition with the rapid recent hardware advancement of smartphone and tablet platforms.
"Both Android and iOS devices have the processing capacity to handle not just VoIP, but video communications," he says. "To do justice to these capabilities, Connection Telecom has the enterprise-grade mobile VoIP and videoconferencing solutions that put the future in our customers' hands."
The other piece of the puzzle - sufficient quality bandwidth - is no longer a problem either.
"We already have two clients running the service very effectively with in-office wireless coverage and a managed IP circuit over Diginet and Fibre to our host. In addition, we employ the G729 bandwidth-optimised codec to provide quality assurance."
Lith says the Bria MVoIP solution effectively routes calls to users' extensions directly to their cellphones. "One customer put all their extensions exclusively on their staff's mobile devices, while another has kept some extensions fixed while roving staff are given mobile extensions."
Certification
Connection Telecom attained the CounterPath ITSP Certified Partner accreditation by successfully testing the solution on its network and for interoperability with its Telviva hosted platform.
Thus cleared as an authorised provider of the Bria solution, Connection Telecom's offering is preconfigured with their extension details when customers sign up for the service.
Lith says customers can subscribe to the Bria Counterpath Cloud Service (CCS) service for staff at about R170 a year ($15.50). Qualifying staff then download the app from the iTunes or Play stores and get automatic service configuration (a SIP account with provisioning and passwords), the G729 bandwidth optimisation codec and upgrades - free of charge.
Trend
Lith says the mobile VoIP trend is growing, though not yet to the extent that it is ready for mainstream external use over 3G. In time LTE/4G will deliver on the promise of an alternative to GSM.
"However, when delivered over managed circuits and proper wireless coverage, this is a real alternative to mobile telephony, delivering quality, cost-effective VoIP on-the-move."
