VON: AT&T adds Cisco, Avaya to VoIP stable

SAN JOSE--AT&T announced this week at the Voice on the Net show that its managed voice-over-IP service will now support Cisco System’s IP PBX solution as well as Avaya’s IP telephony servers, gateways and software.

As part of the Cisco offering, AT&T has certified Cisco’s AVVID (Architecture for Voice, Video and Integrated Data) with the AT&T network and its suite of VoIP services. AT&T also has certified Avaya's IP Telephony servers, gateways and MultiVantage software for interoperability with the network. Trials of AT&T's new VoIP capability with AVVID and Avaya equipment will begin immediately, with service introduction expected during the third quarter. As part of the VoIP rollout, the carrier also is introducing an option for voice over an IP VPN.

The carrier previously had been working with a number of vendors gateways but had yet to make a major commitment to any premises equipment vendor.

“A lot of it you start by one of the 500-pound gorilla customers saying that we have to test something,” said Joe Aibinder, AT&T Business Services VoIP product director.

AT&T envisions a mix of both customer controlled networks as well as hosted services for VoIP, said Clayton Lockhart, AT&T Labs vice president of strategic architecture.

“I think you’ll see the larger premises putting in an IP PBX, but they probably don’t want or need to put a box in every location,” he said.