AT&T mounts wholesale VoIP service expansion

October 31, 2007 -- At the Fall VON 2007 conference, AT&T Inc. announced the expanded availability of the AT&T Voice Over IP Connect Service (AVOICS).

The carrier calls AVOICS "the flagship wholesale Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) offer" for U.S. service providers that want IP-based connectivity to the carrier's global IP network for long distance call termination. The service is billed as providing "unbranded and unbundled transport" over the AT&T network, along with termination of international and U.S. domestic traffic.

Customers connect to the service via AT&T's Managed Internet Service (MIS)/Multiprotocol Label Switching-Private Network Transport (MPLS-PNT) service, which the carrier says provides class-of-service voice quality, key security elements and advanced network reliability. The scalable AVOICS service accepts U.S.-originated domestic outbound (1+) calls and international outbound (011+) calls by using Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) signaling.

The carrier says it has expanded the scale and scope of its wholesale VoIP services, and is now offering AVOICS to customers that want the service with T1, T3 and OCX connectivity as well as meeting a market demand for a customer managed model. Initially introduced with limited availability, AVOICS is now available to all of the carrier's U.S.-based wholesale customers.

"AT&T is helping our wholesale customers evolve to the next generation of converged communications through our suite of VoIP services," comments Sherry Charles, vice president, Wholesale Segment Marketing, AT&T Operations Inc. "We recognize that our customers need to support both native IP and TDM capabilities. The breadth of VoIP offerings that we supply enables service providers to cost-effectively broaden their footprint and enhance their bandwidth through our robust MPLS-based network."