BT awarded a multi-million EUR contract to Alcatel to supply a suite of Session Initiation Protocol (SIP)-based multimedia applications. The Alcatel solution will help BT generate additional revenue through the new BT Communicator with Yahoo! Messenger service offering.
The contract includes the Alcatel 8690 Open Services Platform (OSP) - which allows the customization and rapid roll-out of high-value services and hosts the Alcatel 8605 multimedia application suite - and the Alcatel 5020 Softswitch, which provides the necessary bridge between the voice and data worlds. The selection of Alcatel follows BT's recent decision to employ the Alcatel 8690 OSP as the cornerstone of its common intelligence services layer (CISL) project and reaffirms Alcatel's pedigree as a leader in delivering innovative VoIP-based applications over broadband networks. http://www.alcatel.com
- Earlier this month, BT and Yahoo! launched a residential service that allows consumers to manage all their home communications - phone calls, webcam, emails, texts and instant messaging - together in one place from a Web browser.
- BT Communicator with Yahoo! Messenger is an integrated software package that combines voice services over the web with Yahoo!'s instant messaging. Users are able to make free calls when connecting from their PC to another PC or make calls to a landline or mobile from their computer at the same cost as a phone call on their "BT Together" fixed line phone package. Call records will appear on the standard BT telephone bill as ‘Clic2call' rather than ‘mobile' or ‘local number'. BT customers traveling abroad can make international calls back to any UK number for the price of a domestic UK call.
