Telia Picks Cisco Technology for SMB Service Launch; Cisco Gateways, IP Phones and Switches let small-to-medium businesses combine voice and data in a single connection.

Business Editors/High-Tech Writers

STOCKHOLM, Sweden--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Oct. 8, 2002

Cisco Systems today announced that Telia, the leading player in the Nordic telecommunications market, has chosen Cisco Systems and software company Sylantro Systems, to provide the technology behind the launch of a new service that will enable Scandinavian small-to-medium sized businesses (SMBs) to save costs by using a single IP connection for all their voice and data communications.

Telia's new service is expected to give the company a decisive lead in the provision of telecommunications services to the SMB market by providing an offering that can significantly reduce customers operating costs without affecting company performance. With the IP-based telephony technology and PBX call control features being supplied by Cisco and Sylantro, Telia customers will be able to use just one connection for all their phone and data links, saving on cabling, maintenance and many other areas of operational expenditure.

Andreas Lang of Telia Internet Services, said: "Like any large telecommunications supplier, we can call upon any number of technology vendors. But Cisco was the obvious choice for this project because its products were right for our customers, it had an excellent working relationship both with us and with our software partner and it is been one hundred per cent behind the concept from a marketing and sales point of view."

Cisco technologies will power Telia's SMB service right from the hands of its customers through to the phone company's public switched telephone network (PSTN). Businesses signing up for Telia's service will be offered a choice of three IP phones the Cisco 7960, 7940 and 7905 plus a Cisco ATA 186 analogue telephone adaptor and a Cisco Catalyst 3550 intelligent Ethernet local area network switch. Communications from the customer premises equipment will be routed through Cisco AS5400 Universal Gateways and onto the public switched network via a Cisco PGW 2200 PSTN Gateway. Sylantro's software, meanwhile, will drive the IP centrex managed telephone services used by customers.

Alban Thurston, IP Voice Analyst, at Ovum said "This latest announcement by Telia, Cisco and Sylantro reflects Ovum's belief that, after years of trials, the IP centrex market is at long last poised for dramatic and rapid growth. SMEs are attractive targets for such a scalable solution, as, for the first time, it permits mass customisation of service and applications. Ovum expects significant announcements of new IP Centrex services from north American and European operators in coming months."

Andrew Border, Voice Product Manager, Cisco Systems EMEA said: "We are pleased to part of this market-leading initiative, particularly because it benefits so many parties. Telia's customers get cheaper, more streamlined communications. Telia gets to address an important sector of its market with a really unique offering. And we get to show that Cisco products can be as valuable for small businesses as for the major companies our technology is usually associated with."

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