Telstra has revealed the addition of almost one million new mobile services in the six months to December 2011, but Sensis revenues plummeted 24 percent in 12 months.
One of the first providers of these services in Australia was IP Systems, using one of the first platforms developed for that purpose the BroadSoft BroadWorks platform. BroadWorks is now used by a number of providers, included Telstra, and briefly achieved heights of fame which were not sustained thanks to promises by Telstra which were never delivered.
In August 2003 Telstra announced the launch of IP centrex based on BroadWorks and its first customer, Westpac Bank, saying that the Bank would have all its facilities, with some 30,000 handsets on the System in 18 months. It never happened: the Bank instead went for an in-house Cisco IP PBX.
Had Telstra's promise been fulfilled, it would have given an enormous boost to the idea of IP centrex. As it is, all the big providers: Telstra, AAPT and Optus have struggled to sign up big high profile customers on their high end IP centrex offerings.
Both AAPT some time ago repackaged its BroadSoft based service for the lower end of the market and Optus has now done the same with its Nortel-based services, recently launching its ipPhone Premier and ipPhone Express services for the small business market.
Optus is pushing these services heavily. That in itself is significant: the number two carrier heavily promoting VoIP to the low end of the business market. That can only be good for VoIP uptake by small businesses: it will lift the awareness and acceptability of VoIP in that space significantly.
Finally there is another offering which has been in the market fairly low key for over a year. The Linksys One system from Cisco subsidiary Linksys. IP Systems has been the provider in Australia, and a pioneer worldwide. Now with Release 2 of the software out, and with Soul and others set to launch, it could be a significant force in the market: Cisco never gets into markets where it does no aim to be a major player.
Linksys One is neither fish nor fowl. All the software functionality to handle telephone services usually provided by an IP PBX or key system runs in the handsets but the configuration of the whole system is maintained off-site by the service provider, such as IP systems. So any device or the whole system can easily be replaced and the resellers that are the interface to the customer can configure and maintain systems remotely.
VoIP is still in its infancy. There will undoubtedly be much more innovation forthcoming.
David Bass
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