2015 was another banner year for moving service provider voice from old school ways to deliver voice to cloud-based solutions. As residential and business VoIP continues the shift to cloud delivery models, that transition is also happening to service provider VoIP infrastructure. As part of the movement to web-scale, virtualized solutions, cloud voice platforms are increasingly adopted by all types of service providers to power new services and replace aging, obsolete networks.
This is a category and a movement; this is not a singular solution offering from Alianza. We expect more solutions to emerge in coming months and years. Some will do so with partnerships—as we’ve done with new channel partners—and others by building or acquiring this functionality. The cloud voice platform helps service providers with network transformation, executes on the software virtualization trend and powers new business services that the SMB market is demanding and service providers are clamoring to launch.
Cloud voice platforms are not reseller programs or private label approaches to VoIP. The cloud is an evolutionary leap beyond old school wholesale approaches that use old-iron networks or resell another vendor’s software platform. There are plenty of hosted application server shops out there; we don’t count them as cloud voice platforms.
Some of the highlights for 2015 in the service provider voice infrastructure shift to the cloud include:
Alianza Cloud Voice Platform
- We had a stellar year as we doubled end-users on the platform
- Twelve new service provider customers and two channel partners said yes to our cloud
- You can read more about the growth in our press release Service Provider Voices Moves to the Cloud
BroadSoft BroadCloud
- Reported 30-66% annual growth in each quarter
- In the third quarter of 2015 BroadCloud had grown to be 13% of BroadSoft’s quarterly revenue
- Mid-year BroadSoft reported 160,000 subscribers on its cloud voice platform
GENBAND Nuvia
- Expanded wholesale UC solution to U.K.
- Announced 5 customers consisting of network operators and MSPs
While not in the same service provider solution space as the three players above, Twillio is focused on a different application of cloud voice and the company raised over $130 million in a Series E round. Twillio uses its own cloud platform with API control and integration with carrier networks to embed communications—messaging, phone calls, and video calling—into applications and software-driven service companies. In the same space as Twillio, Cisco also made a move by acquiring Tropos.
Cable companies, ISPs, telcos all are embracing this new way to deliver voice. As we like to say: the cloud voice platform “radically transforms communications delivery so that service providers thrive with strong margins, better service, and elegant management.” Service providers are agreeing!
Read more about this movement in our white paper Service Provider VoIP: Next Gen is the Cloud.
