[February 07, 2008] Opal Telecom announces strategic partnership with Voiceflex Tweet First major carrier to provide SIP connectivity via Next Generation Network Warrington, 07 Feb 2008: Opal Telecom, the B2B division of The Carphone Warehouse (News - Alert), has announced the signing of a strategic partnership with leading UK SIP developer, Voiceflex. IP-PBX vendors have long espoused the benefits of ‘unified communications’ – now at last a major carrier is providing a SIP trunk offering to unlock this value. Following a £100M investment, Opal Telecom now has the largest SIP compatible NGN in the UK. As the first major carrier to embrace SIP connectivity we can now offer real competitive advantage to the channel. Voiceflex SIP trunks also have proven interoperability with all major IP-PBX (News - Alert) manufacturers, giving this new partnership even greater significance. The SIP trunk application will be enhanced by Opal’s diverse range of value added applications which include IVR, call queuing, recording, screening, and full PSTN interworking. Geoff Wilson, Business Development Director at Opal Telecom, said: “Opal recognises that Voiceflex is the Benchmark for SIP trunking in the UK. They have more direct SIP trunk connectivity with telephony manufacturers than any other SIP provider, so we are delighted to have formed this strategic partnership with the market-leading SIP developer”. Opal provides one of the largest channel sales structures in the country, which means coupled with the expertise that Voiceflex bring to the mix, this new partnership delivers scale and competitive edge over every other UK SIP provider. For the Channel, genuine benefits of this combined proposition are clear; increased margins, full interoperability, competitive advantage and greater customer lock-in. Paul Taylor, Sales & Marketing Director at Voiceflex, added: “SIP has proven that it can transform the way organisations operate. SIP builds on the benefits of IP by adding intelligence to business processes and providing greater control over communications. Organisations can cost-effectively link multiple sites in a single network, including home offices, enabling them to share the same telephony infrastructures and applications”. Over the coming months Opal will be working closely with Voiceflex to develop and deliver a portfolio of SIP based products, targeted at the IP-PBX market, amongst others. - ENDS - Notes to Editors Please contact Andrea Walton (e: [email protected]) or Julian Jordan (e: [email protected] t: 0845 4900 588 m: 07912 786 947 for further information. About Opal Telecom Opal, founded in 1995, is the UK’s 3rd largest telecom network operator and a wholly owned subsidiary of The Carphone Warehouse plc (a FTSE 100 company). With headquarters in Warrington and divisions in Manchester, London, West Midlands, Portsmouth, Glasgow and High Wycombe, the company offers voice, mobile and data services primarily to the Corporate and SME markets in the UK. Opal employs over 900 staff and currently manages over 100,000 business customers. For further information, please visit: www.opaltelecom.co.uk About VoiceFlex VoiceFlex, a division of Frontier Systems, was established to provide advanced IP telephony (VoIP) services for UK businesses. Bringing the reliability of the Internet to the telephone, VoiceFlex is an advocate of SIP (Session Initiation Protocol (News - Alert)) - the latest technology allowing voice calls to be made over the Internet. Voiceflex has developed SIP interoperability with the following manufacturers: Avaya, Astra, NEC/Philips, Siemens, Shortel, Epygi (News - Alert), Alcatel, Cisco, Samsung, Swyx, Asterix, AYC. VoiceFlex offices are based in London and Coventry. For further information, please visit: www.voiceflex.com Interactive Voice Response (IVR) X A hardware- or software-based computer system that enables incoming callers to interact with voice prompts or verbal commands....more Private Branch Exchange (PBX) X Originally, telephone features were provided by telephone central office switching systems, often called CENTREX. PBX systems emerged as customers wanted to have more calling features and control over...more Voice over IP (VoIP) X A real-time communications system that converts voice into digital packets containing media and signaling data that travel over networks using Internet Protocol....more Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) X SIP is the real-time communication protocol for VoIP. SIP is a signaling protocol for Internet conferencing, telephony, presence, events notification (emergency calling) and instant messaging. SIP...more Internet Protocol (IP) X IP stands for Internet Protocol, a data-networking protocol developed throughout the 1980s. It is the established standard protocol for transmitting and receiving data in packets over the Internet. I...more [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]