OPTUS WHOLESALE UNVEILS NEXT GENERATION VOIP

Speaking at a telecommunications industry breakfast today, Warren Hardy, Managing Director of Optus Wholesale & Satellite, unveiled Optus' wholesale business-grade Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) IP Gateway service.

Optus' new service strengthens its position as a leading wholesaler to Australia's Information Communication & Technology (ICT) market - providing state-of-the-art alternatives to industry players used to deploying legacy technologies from the incumbent.

Optus VoIP IP Gateway offers service providers the ability to terminate and receive calls through the Optus network. It also enables a multitude of different voice services to be carried on one IP connection with the equivalent quality of traditional voice networks.

"With Australia on the edge of the broadband boom, the demand for VoIP is extremely high," Mr Hardy said.

"Service providers and carriers see VoIP as a value added application. It can help boost their customer base and grow revenue; increase their footprint; create bundled offerings for end-users; and offer non-telecommunications providers with a vehicle to enter new markets.

"These types of services help grow competition in the Australian telecommunications market - which ultimately brings better services and better prices to consumers," he said.

"Our service is a business class IP Telephony service - it is more robust that some residential Voice over Broadband services available in the market today.

"We are offering our wholesale customers two VoIP IP Gateway services.

"The first caters to those customers that own their own platform to connect wireline phone calls to IP networks for VoIP, known as a soft switch, and the second for those that do not have their own platform.

"Optus partners with Nortel Networks to offer the Nortel CS2K switch for customers with large call volumes and with Sun Microsystems for customers with low to medium call volumes.

"Additionally, the IP carriage is provisioned by Optus' managed IP Virtual Private Network," Mr Hardy said.

Over 100 Optus customers attended today's breakfast to hear about the latest products and services from Optus Wholesale & Satellite.

Media contact:
Luisa Ford
Optus Corporate Affairs
Phone: 02 9342 5045