MCI-buyer Verizon to offer hosted VoIP for Europe

European Voice on the Net show sees Verizon announce details of its plans for European push

Last week’s European Voice on the Net (VON) show saw many telecoms carriers and service providers announce new enterprise voice over IP (VoIP) services. They included US giant Verizon, which plans to push into the European market after its $8.4bn acquisition of MCI (formerly WorldCom) last year.

Verizon Business announced a number of hosted IP Centrex, IP trunking and managed IP PBX systems, as well as a wholesale global VoIP gateway. The gateway is aimed at service providers, which can use it to offer hosted VoIP systems of their own.

Eric Bruno, Verizon Business vice-president of strategy, said Verizon will refocus on multinational companies rather than small to medium-sized business customers. He also stressed the importance of good customer service and global network reach for these clients.

Bruno estimated that, through MCI, Verizon already had accounts with 57 percent of the companies in the Forbes Global 2000 list of the world’s largest firms. But he conceded that the carrier was not necessarily the primary or even the secondary service provider used by these firms.

“MCI did an excellent job of retaining a core set of customers and already has a foot in the door,” Bruno commented. “There is not something magical we are able to do that someone else cannot, but we do have a capability to invest in the network that we did not have before.”

WorldCom was investigated for financial irregularities in 2002 and subsequently filed for bankruptcy before re-emerging as MCI in 2003. At the time, many of the company’s customers reportedly switched to other telecoms providers because of uncertainty about continued service provision.

The VON conference also saw DataFlex introduce a VoIP access device that integrates ADSL2+ and Wi-Fi alongside analogue and ISDN connectivity. Meanwhile, D-Link announced its HorstBox hardware – a VoIP-enabled ISDN access device, designed to provide smaller organisations with an all-in-one call centre system.