There is significant momentum taking place with hosted IP voice services, and it’s not just a tool for the SMB market segment. Wholesale hosted IP voice solutions for carriers are on the rise as well and Level 3 is the latest to announce a cloud based voice offer. Their Carrier Cloud Voice solution targets “…CLECs, wireless carriers, cable multiple system operators (MSOs) and telcos…” with an outsourced voice solution.
“This complete, carrier-grade solution allows service providers to reliably realize the benefits of a cloud-based model,” said Shaun Andrews, Level 3’s senior vice president of Global Voice Services in a press release.
The solution is a partnership between Level 3 and Alianza, using Level 3’s voice network and Alianza’s cloud based voice platform. Alianza delivers voice service across a software-as-a-service platform, providing APIs for all the back end integration for billing, OSS, etc., allowing a service provider to market an outsourced voice service to residential and business customers.
Alianza will pair that capability up with Level 3’s U.S. local voice network and VoIP numbering and interconnection resources to offer a new hosted voice platform for carriers.
It’s yet another example of the ongoing move to the cloud, where vendors and traditional wholesale carriers are looking to harness infrastructure and software as a service models, allowing them to turn legacy services like voice into a hosted application. This particular solution may be appealing to some carriers who are not interested in managing their own end-to-end voice network, but still want the capability to bundle voice with other applications.
