BT adds Ribbit technology to Onevoice

Onevoice Ribbit will allow companies to host calls through the Onevoice VPN

BT is to add Ribbit's VoIP capabilities to its Onevoice telephony services for large multinationals in what the firm described as a "landmark" decision.

Onevoice Ribbit v1.0 will allow companies to host calls through the Onevoice virtual private network (VPN), and dramatically reduce operational, network and administration costs, according to BT.

Simon Farr, head of BT's unified communications and collaboration global services division, claimed that the move marked a coming together of old and new technologies to offer a range of benefits to large enterprises.

"With staff increasingly mobile, or often working from home, the ability to route calls and host them on-net offers a much more cost-effective means of making calls from any location worldwide through the Onevoice VPN," he said.

Farr explained that the technology reduces international calling costs by routing calls through local networks first so that they are charged at local rates.

BT is confident that this will prove enticing for new customers, and will help BT grow despite lost revenues from international call charges.

"We will also be using Ribbit's unified messaging technology to improve the capabilities of voicemail in the system. Now, users can have voicemails transcribed and texted to them, or sent as a file to an email," Farr said.

The Ribbit technology has been "baked in" to the Onevoice VPN in order to provide the same level of security and quality as normal calls to meet the security requirements of large companies, BT said.

Onevoice Ribbit is going through beta testing with a number of firms, and Farr confirmed that it will launch before the end of the year. No pricing information is available at present.

BT acquired Ribbit for £53m in 2008, and launched Ribbit for Salesforce in April 2009.