EarthLink picks IP Unity for voice mail, messaging

EarthLink announced Monday that it is using IP Unity technology to offer voice mail for its new voice services, and will later use the same systems to deliver unified messaging.

EarthLink has deployed the IP Unity Mereon 6000 Media Server, Mereon Application Server and Mereon Unified Messaging for its trueVoice and Line Powered Voice services, said Tom Hsieh, EarthLink’s Director of Voice Products and Engineering.

“IP Unity is an important partner for us,” Hsieh said. “They have helped us get out the door very quickly with a product and feature set that is important to us.”

In addition to offering trueVoice, its VoIP offering, EarthLink will be rolling out Line Powered Voice, beginning with a trial in December in San Francisco/San Jose, Seattle and Dallas, Hsieh said. Customers will not see any change in their voice service, which will be traditional POTS in the last mile, over a line shared with ADSL 2-plus for 8 Mb/s access. At the CO, EarthLink will convert the voice signal to IP.

“Customers won’t have to change anything within the home, and the service will work in every phone in the home,” he said.

The IP Unity system was chosen in a product bake-off in large part because of its carrier class capability and scalability, Hsieh added.

EarthLink is a key customer for IP Unity because of its national deployment, CEO Arun Sobti said.

“There are many applications--N-Way Audioconferencing, Interactive Voice Response and Announcements--that they can use,” he said.