VOIP and SIP News

Telstra, the Australian telecommunications company will help small business migrate to VoIP by investing $600 million in a Quality-of-Service upgrade.

The company says the Quality-of-Service upgrade is vital to offer the standard of reliability and service that customers should expect.

1600 exchanges in Australian capital cities will benefit from the five year IP telephony project. By using the $120 per month Digital Business package they can make cheap VoIP calls over their Telstra ADSL2+ connection.

The ADSL2+ connection will be made with a Cisco Router and a Cisco digital phone and all standard call costs are included.

That means 90% of Australian businesses will have cheap VoIP calls by September 2011. After the initial set-up fee businesses on average will save up to $2400 dollars per year on calls and communications.

Two of the main players in the deal were the Telco CEO David Thodey and the Federal Minister for Small Business in Australia, Nick Sherry.

Mr Thodey said: "Often people say they want a cheaper price but what they are really saying is that they want more functionality at an affordable price. [Our cost savings] equate to more than a billion dollars annually across the Australian economy."

The Telstra package includes unlimited access to a MessageBank, Voice2Email messaging and a domain name if you want to set up a website.

There is also Microsoft Exchange Online so that people can access their calendar and emails even if they are not in the office. For an additional $15 per month it is possible to get the internet connections and voice connections automatically switched over to the Telstra NextG network as a backup for the ADSL connection.

The service will also be ready for use when the Australian National Broadband Network is rolled out.