Canada-based business provider Allstream, which is in the process of being acquired by Zayo, is already moving to penetrate new business service opportunities in the United States by introducing cross-border service for its Hosted Collaboration Solution (HCS).
Delivered through a partnership with eLoyalty, part of TeleTech Technology, Allstream will be able to provide its HCS functionality and 24/7 support to businesses with locations in the United States.
HCS is a hosted and fully managed Unified Communications and Collaboration (UCC) solution which delivers the Cisco UCC suite of applications to Canadian businesses in a cloud-based model.
In Canada, business customers' Canadian services will be hosted by Allstream's SIP-based fiber network, while in the U.S., services will be hosted and delivered via the customer's preferred network provider.
Allstream said that the cross-border solution enables Allstream's new and existing customers to operate their UCaaS network seamlessly in Canada or the U.S. This would include the growing mix of voice, video, presence and mobility applications to compatible desktop and mobile devices.
The service is priced on a per-seat, per-month basis in Canadian or U.S. currency. By leveraging the cloud, Allstream said the cross-border solution minimizes up-front capital costs and reduces reliance on internal resources associated with traditional premises-based equipment (CPE) deployments. Geo-redundancy is also provided "in-country" with operational and customer data only being routed to the corresponding geo-redundant site.
While Zayo has not revealed its service strategy for the combined company, this new service is likely a precursor of one of the types of offerings it could offer U.S. and Canadian customers that need cross-border capabilities.
For more:
- see the release
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