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AT&T and Avaya to Accelerate Business VoIP MigrationTMCnet VoIP Minute Watch Columnist
AT&T Inc. and Avaya Inc. announced on Tuesday that they have formed a partnership to accelerate VoIP migration in the enterprise market and government agencies.
The deal will integrate AT&T's global IP network, network design and management tools with Avaya's enterprise IP communications technology to deliver managed systems from the wide area network to the IP phone on the desktop. The systems will provide the tools necessary to accelerate migration to IP telephony and the associated local area network (LAN) and wireless LAN infrastructure. By giving customers a single point of contact for virtually every aspect of this migration, including design, implementation, operation, ongoing management and maintenance, the alliance seems to be poised to facilitate the acceleration of global VoIP and IP telephony deployments and simplify the integration with traditional circuit-switched enterprise voice networks.
AT&T and Avaya have been working side by side during the last few years to design and deliver IP telephony-based systems. In 2003, AT&T announced interoperability of Avaya's IP telephony servers, gateways and MultiVantage software with AT&T’s global IP network and VoIP services. Avaya Session Initiation Protocol (SIP)-enabled servers are in the process of completing interoperability testing as well.
"Interoperability is one of the biggest challenges facing businesses and government agencies today, as they plan their migration to VoIP and IP telephony. This alliance addresses that challenge, ensuring that regardless of where enterprises are in this migration, their traditional voice networks will interoperate with their IP-based voice network and equipment," said Eric Shepcaro, AT&T vice president of business strategy and development.
AT&T integrated a suite of Avaya IP telephony products, including Avaya Communication Manager, with the AT&T IP Telephony and LAN Service. With this system, AT&T is able to manage a customer's entire IP telephony infrastructure, such as IP PBXs, media servers, voice gateways, voicemail systems, IP phones and IP soft phones.
"Working with industry leaders, such as AT&T, is a key component of Avaya’s solution delivery model for businesses of all sizes," said Peter Leuzzi, Avaya vice president, Strategic Alliances and Partnerships. "Integrating the strengths of Avaya’s business communications solutions and service capabilities with AT&T’s global network reach and depth of service offerings creates streamlined solution options for companies that are planning to migrate to IP telephony."
Under the alliance, Avaya IP telephony products, including the Avaya IP Office converged system for small and medium businesses, also were integrated into the global AT&T Solution Center Lab Network, so that businesses can assess, plan, design and implement new network solutions. The lab network enables customers to test drive new applications, services and network designs to ensure performance.
AT&T IP Telephony and LAN service is part of the company's suite of business VoIP services. Last year, AT&T introduced the Dynamic Network Applications suite of IP communications services.
Avaya made news yesterday when it announced that a new Groupware Edition of the Avaya Meeting Exchange is now available and it integrates intelligent conferencing to provide Lotus users with expanded collaboration and faster customer responsiveness.
Communications efforts are being streamlined for IBM Lotus and IBM Workplace Collaboration Services users through three Avaya Intelligent Communications systems, including the new Avaya Meeting Exchange Groupware Edition, that enable workers to instantaneously connect with customers and co-workers. The systems would make it easier to solve problems in the workplace in order to speed higher quality customer satisfaction.
If you are at the Internet telephony Conference & EXPO taking place this week at the Broward County Convention Center in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, be sure not to miss AT&T's own director of retail marketing Kevin C. Flynn's session on VoIP @ Retail on Wednesday, January 25 at 10:15-11:00am; and Avaya's own director of communications applications Diane Shariff's participation on the IP Contact Center Shootout on Wednesday, January 25 at 2:00-3:45pm.
AT&T Inc.
Avaya Inc.
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Johanne Torres is contributing editor for TMCnet and Internet Telephony magazine. To see more articles by Johanne Torres, please visit Johanne Torres' columnist page.
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