More on PSINet VOIP
Thanks to djane for original posting. This article gives more insight from PSINet perspective.
soundingboardmag.com
PSINet Unveils VoIP Strategy
By Paula Bernier
It appears that Internet protocol (IP) telephony is
finally starting to catch on with the Internet service
provider set.
PSINet Inc. (www.psinet.com) announced this
week a trio of IP telephony services--under the
name PSIVoice--for the intranet, extranet and
consumer markets. The services will run over IP
connections on PSINet's frame relay backbone and
will be based on equipment from Ascend
Communications Inc. (www.ascend.com).
With 39,000 corporate customers in 36 countries,
it's not surprising that PSINet's IP telephony efforts
are focused primarily at corporate multinationals.
iPEnterprise enables businesses with private branch
exchanges (PBXs) to use PSINet's frame relay/IP
network for carrier-grade voice services between
their locations. The service is targeted at distributed
corporations with offices overseas.
iPEnterprise Plus enables corporations to reach
select destinations--such as business partners,
customers or suppliers--outside their intranets via
low-cost IP telephony links. The extranet service will
allow for simplified dialing codes and other enhanced
features such as desktop faxing, conference calling
and unified messaging services.
Customers, who will be charged on flat per-site
basis (PSINet says the exact fee will vary based on
the customer) rather than a per-minute charge, can
expect to save 20 percent to 50 percent over what it
would otherwise cost them for their voice
communications, says PSINet's chief technology
officer Chuck Davin.
"[It will be] tiered based on the number of
simultaneous voices that are supported," says Davin.
As part of the two corporation services, PSINet will
install an IP telephony-enabled Ascend MAX2000
(supporting a single T1, or 1.5 megabits per second
link) or MAX6000 (supporting four T1s) at the
customer premises. The devices will act as dedicated
IP telephony gateways (not as general data access
devices).
The Ascend products work with most popular
PBXs, such as those from Lucent Technologies Inc.
(www.lucent.com) and Northern Telecom Inc.
(www.nortel.com), says Roger Boyce, Ascend vice
president and general manager. Service and
provisioning capabilities may vary depending upon
the flexibility of the PBX, he adds.
iPGlobal, meanwhile, is targeted at the consumer
market, although PSINet plans to sell it largely as a
wholesale service to other carriers that want to sell it
to consumers. The consumer product will be based
on Ascend's TNT, DS-3-level product.
IPEnterprise is available now to any PSINet existing
customer. IPEnterprise Plus is scheduled to be
available later this year. IPGlobal is expected to
make its debut early next year, with the deployment
of gateways for that service largely depending upon
where PSINet sees demand (the company has not
yet struck gateway interconnection agreements with
other carriers or settlements providers).
So why did it take so long for PSINet to get into IP
telephony?
Unlike some of the next-generation telcos that have
come out with IP telephony services over the past
several months, PSINet is focused on the business
market, so it waited to come out with its services
until it could ensure high-quality connections, says
Davin.
"We're on a different market focus," he says. "Many
early voice over IP focused on consumers, we're
focused on the corporate customer base. And with
[these customers] quality is a cardinal issue."
Davin says the quality of its IP telephony connections
will be "nearly imperceptible" from voice conversions
on the public switched network or via dedicated
voice lines. Compression will vary depending on
customer requirements, he says, adding the Ascend
products support all popular IP telephony
compression schemes.
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