AT&T Launches Hosted Voice Service for Business

AT&T officially has launched its first hosted IP service suite for SMBs. Called Dynamic Network Applications (DNA), AT&T describes the services as a “portfolio of IP services” that includes high-speed data, voice, conferencing and messaging. The first service to be offered is Voice DNA, a hosted VoIP service that replaces a premises PBX.

AT&T is rolling out the services cautiously. The current plan is to offer it to “a limited number” of customers in the next few months, then continue introducing it through the rest of the year. AT&T did not provide dates when the service would be available to throughout its footprint.

DNA includes several unique features for business users in addition to the usual PBX functions. The service uses SIP forking, a capability within the SIP protocol, to allow an incoming call to ring simultaneously to several different devices that have the same phone number, such as a desk phone and a soft phone. The Locate Me feature gives the ability to designate up to four different classes of callers and set up different call-forwarding and routing schemes for each group.

Another feature, called Mid-Call Move, enables a user to transfer a call to another kind of device, such as from a desk phone to cell phone, without losing the call. The on-demand audio conferencing feature, which allows up to 10 participants, is integrated with Microsoft Corp.’s Outlook and can notify participants of a conference using several mechanisms, such as voice mail, e-mail and instant messages.

With the features of the new service are several packages of calling, which also are available without the hosted PBX features. Any Distance provides unlimited on-net, local and long-distance calling for customer sites in AT&T's VoIP local footprint, which, the company says, covers most metropolitan areas of the United States.

Another local-only package includes unlimited on-net and local calling, plus a bucket of long-distance minutes. A long-distance-only package also is available.

A number of IP phones will be certified as interoperable with the service. “We have an interoperability test program, and have … certified some Cisco models and some from Polycom at this time, and we will continue to do certification of others” says Karen Brady, product marketing director for the services over IP division of AT&T.

Although the ability to use third-party applications or to develop their own is not yet in high demand by customers, AT&T has included mechanisms to accommodate it. “In the future we expect customers will want to write their own application scripts in SIP,” says Joe Aibinder, offer management director of services over IP for AT&T. “We want to provide APIs so they could possibly do third-party applications.”

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