Cablevision Business Voice Calls On Firms With Up To 100 Employees

Cablevision Systems is hoping to convince more small business to rip out their telco T-1 lines, with the news that its IP-based voice trunking service now provides up to 100 direct-dial phone numbers.

The Optimum Voice Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) Trunking service from Optimum Business uses a company's existing small business IP PBX (private branch exchange) system. The operator's SIP trunking service now has capacity of up to 24 streams -- equal to the legacy T-1s from the phone company -- up from 12 streams previously.

The service's ability to provide up to 100 Direct Inward Dial (DID) telephone numbers is up from 40 previously. In addition, Optimum Voice SIP Trunking is now compliant with Avaya IP Office 6.0.

"Our integrated solutions improve the quality and reliability of voice services, simplifies configuration, reduces equipment costs and provides significant room for scalability versus traditional T-1 solutions," Cablevision vice president of business and voice product management Joe Varello said in a statement.

Other features of Optimum Voice SIP Trunking include immediate alternate call routing, allowing customers to specify an alternate phone number in the event that an equipment problem is detected, plus Caller ID, white pages listing, E911, call forwarding, anonymous call blocking and anonymous calling.

Optimum Voice SIP Trunking is priced at $29.95 per month for unlimited calling for each simultaneous inbound/outbound call session, available in four to 24 sessions. The first block of 10 DIDs is included; up to 90 additional DIDs are available per customer and are sold in blocks of 10 for $1.95 per block, per month. The flat-rate calling area includes the U.S., Canada and Puerto Rico.

Cablevision provides configuration guides at www.optimumbusiness.com/sip for the following phone systems: Asterisk, Avaya IP Office, Cisco SPA 9000, Digium Switchbox AA65 IP-PBX v23695, Fonality Tribox Pro, Microsoft Response Point, NEC Univerge SV8100 series, Nortel, Panasonic NCP & TDE series, Talkswitch 848vs and Toshiba Strata CIX series.