Avaya, Level 3 Team for UC

At Enterprise Connect today, Avaya announced a plan to enter a strategic relationship with Level 3 Communications (NYSE:LVLT, news, filings) as part of the launch of its hosted UC solution for small and medium businesses. The product, AvayaLive Connect, is still in trials, but is expected to go live this summer with a suite of cloud-based capabilities. It’s part of Avaya’s ‘Collaborative Cloud’ framework, which they are also detailing today. 

Avaya will be leveraging Level 3’s SIP infrastructure, giving them the network infrastructure to go with their cloud-based technology. Meanwhile, Level 3 will gain access to a segment of the market they are not yet targeting all that much. Level 3’s VoIP infrastructure has gotten less press lately than its CDN or the integration it is working on, but if Avaya’s UC initiative takes off it will certainly help their growth plans.

Meanwhile, Level 3 also picked up a converged services renewal south of the border with Mexican-based Grupo Elektra. Grupo Elektra is using their IP backbone for converged voice, video and data between its headquarters and its branches throughout Latin America. Obviously this relationship derives from the Global Crossing transaction, and suggests that the former Impsat business is continuing to find the path ahead smooth.

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Categories: Internet Backbones · Unified Communications · VoIP