Consolidated Communications is taking a larger bite out of the cloud services market with a series of new cloud offerings that it will initially offer to businesses that reside in its Sacramento, Calif., and Dallas metro markets.
Under its new cloud series, Consolidated will offer four key services to businesses:
Unified Communications: As a cloud-based service, Consolidated's UC platform allows any sized business to replace their premises-based PBXs and data networks with a centrally managed solution that supports phones, voice mail, e-mail, video, instant messaging and mobility. One of the benefits of using the cloud-based UC service is that a business does not have to manage and maintain multiple vendor platforms, while freeing IT staff to focus on their core competencies.
Cloud Compute: Cloud Compute allows busineses to host their IT systems in Consolidated's computing environment with the ability to pay for only what they need. This enables businesses to reduce their investment in servers, storage, data center space and network equipment.
Data Protection: As a fully managed solution, Data Protection offers integrated backup and disaster recovery. Business customers that purchase this product will receive complete support, training, reporting and ongoing management to ensure that critical data assets are not compromised, mitigating company risk and providing relief to IT teams. Data Protection also adheres to a number of key health care and financial compliance standards including HIPAA, PCI and Safe Harbor requirements. All workloads, infrastructure, and environments reside in CCI's redundant, enterprise-class geographically diverse data centers.
Cloud Wi-Fi: Similar to other offerings in its cloud series, Cloud Wi-Fi is also focused on assisting businesses that don't have in-house wireless expertise by assuming the management of wireless technologies. One of the key features of the Cloud Wi-Fi service is a web-based dashboard that provides network oversight and integrated on-demand tools to conduct performance analysis of network performance and connectivity.
Expanding its cloud portfolio makes sense for Consolidated. The telco began offering its cloud services suite in its upper Midwest region prior to acquiring Enventis last year.
One of the advantages it will bring to the table for new and existing customers in the Dallas and Sacramento markets is its growing on-net fiber footprint that can support higher speed cloud applications. During the second quarter, Consolidated reported that it added 224 route fiber miles and 36 new on-net fiber buildings.
While its on-net building strategy is to focus on success-based deployments, it will certainly come in handy as it looks to pursue new business contracts for cloud and Ethernet in major verticals like health care and education.
For more:
- see the release
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