VoxTelecom, Telkom in VOIP interconnect first

Specialist voice over IP (VOIP) telephony provider VoxTelecom has become the first VOIP provider to sign an interconnect agreement with Telkom, overcoming a major hurdle to the widespread adoption of VOIP telephony.

"It's a hugely significant and exciting achievement for us," says VoxTelecom MD Jaco Voigt. "We can now exchange calls directly with Telkom via local links, which means we can offer our customers much higher-quality VOIP calls at a very competitive price. This finally makes VOIP a no-brainer decision for a very wide range of organisations."

VoxTelecom can now offer its own range of 087 numbers, says Voigt, "which means that the range of services we can offer our customers increases tenfold, from caller ID to detailed management information".

Voigt says the deal is a testament to VoxTelecom's technical capability. "VOIP and traditional telephony are based on completely different technologies, so it's not a simple matter to connect a call from one medium to the other. Telkom's willingness to interconnect with us is based on their faith in the depth of our technical skills."

The agreement will have a big impact on the uptake of VOIP services in the South African market, says Voigt. "The ability to get interconnection working properly is the biggest single influence on the success of VOIP," he says. "Now that the gates are open, VOIP will really take off. We expect to see a big surge in demand in the next few months."