A common question for all of us to answer: so, what does your company do? A start-up and early stage growth company has more explaining to do than normal. Alianza provides a wholesale VoIP solution based on a cloud voice platform. Ok, so what does that mean? The terms by themselves have meaning (in some cases, many definitions abound).
Alianza has built a cloud voice platform with the purpose of transforming communications delivery so that service providers can thrive with superior economics and functionality. We use that term cloud voice platform because we think it’s descriptive and accurate. I realize “cloud voice” and “cloud communications” are well used and can result in some ambiguity. So, here is what we mean:
- Cloud – Alianza has taken all the disparate functions and elements that service provider normally needs to buy, build and manage and hosts it in scalable, secure data centers; this solution eliminates the need for building and running a network and is delivered in a SaaS financial model that aligns costs with revenues
- Voice – residential and business feature set that allows service providers to deliver and profit from voice services and bundle it with their broadband offerings
- Platform – turnkey wholesale solution for fixed, mobile, cable operators along with ISPs and MVNOs—basically any company that sells or resells a broadband network
Further, Alianza’s solution is:
- 100% wholesale focused – we focus on making our service provider customers successful so our services are not sold directly to residential or business users
- Customizable – this is not a private label or resale of a pre-defined set of services; our customers define and brand the service bundles and price them as they see fit
- Operationally integrated – leveraging a rich API that controls all aspects of the platform, service providers have full control and visibility of their subscribers extending from product definition to subscriber provisioning and customer care and billing
- Turnkey – we partner and integrate the controls with wholesale carriers like Level 3 Communications to provide the transit, PSTN connectivity, number portability and inventory; this is the voice network in its entirety.
I’ve recently published some resources that aim to provide some context and clarity on the term cloud voice platform:
Carrier Voice – Ditching Boxes for Clouds – an article I wrote for Internet Telephony
Making Voice Profitable in the IP Age – an overview presentation on cloud voice platforms and Alianza
While we believe we are the first and have designed the architecture that best meets service provider requirements, we don’t think this is a market of one. We also believe that cloud voice platform is a market category and that others have entered this market space or may very likely soon. Companies in adjacent markets of VoIP equipment, wholesale carriers, hosted messaging solutions and outsourced mobile platforms, see that cloud voice platforms solve real challenges for service providers.
Once upon a time, building and managing a network was the only was to be in the voice business. Given the voice market dynamics and the powerful new technology available, that model looks antiquated and risky today. Cloud voice platforms offers a radical new approach and provide superior profitability for voice services.