Bell takes on Vonage with Business IP Voice targetting SMB users

“This is one more arrow in our quiver for our IP strategy,” said Jon Wiese, senior vice-president of marketing, SMB, Bell Canada. “We’re aggressively as a company moving away from legacy networks to IP networks. We’re also looking for other applications that we can use on top of the IP network.”Vonage has had a small business offering in North America for around three to four years.
While both Bell and Vonage offer customers access to an online Web portal for managing and modifying account features and services, Vonage Canada’s vice-president of marketing and business development, Joe Parent, said his firm offers a more “functional” Web portal than Bell’s.
Vonage, because of its roots in the U.S., offers secondary lines throughout Canada and the U.S., plus virtual lines in the U.K. and Mexico City with plans to expand to other international locals in the near future, said Parent.
Wiese, however, points out that Bell offers both a hosted and premises solution.
“Telecom providers in the recent past have kind of overlooked the SMB,” said Carrie MacGillivray, senior analyst for Canadian market strategies at The Yankee Group. “Bell put a big push to the SMB in providing services through their Virtual CIO and their productivity pack.
“This is the next logical step for them to offer VoIP.”
The Business IP Voice kit includes voice adapter, telephone cable, Ethernet cable and DC power supply.

Would you recommend this article?

Share

Thanks for taking the time to let us know what you think of this article!
We'd love to hear your opinion about this or any other story you read in our publication.


Jim Love, Chief Content Officer, IT World Canada

Featured Download

Featured Story

How the CTO can Maintain Cloud Momentum Across the Enterprise

Embracing cloud is easy for some individuals. But embedding widespread cloud adoption at the enterprise level is...

Related Tech News

Get ITBusiness Delivered

Our experienced team of journalists brings you engaging content targeted to IT professionals and line-of-business executives delivered directly to your inbox.

Featured Tech Jobs