Vox Telecom has taken a step closer to realising its vision of being a complete alternative to Telkom, with the launch of Cristal Vox, an all-in-one corporate voice offering from the group's Vox Orion.
“The introduction of geographic number ranges for alternative operators means we can offer our enterprise customers a complete menu of inbound and outbound voice services, at lower cost - and they can still have numbers that reflect where they are,” says Vox Orion's Jacques du Toit.
Previously known mostly for its provision of cellular least-cost routing services, Vox Orion can now offer a highly cost-effective alternative for all outbound voice traffic, says Du Toit. Vox Orion has interconnect agreements with all the large network operators, which ensures that whether your call is going to a Telkom number, a Neotel number, a cellular number or anyone else, we can route it in the most cost-effective way.”
Du Toit says Vox customers save not only because the company charges lower absolute rates, but also because it bills per second rather than in 30-second or one-minute increments like Telkom.
Vox Orion can also now deliver all a company's inbound voice traffic, completely eliminating the need to deal with any other providers, adds Du Toit. “We're now able to provide geographic numbers like 011 and 021 numbers, which has removed one of the hurdles - customers were not comfortable with 087 numbers. The big remaining hurdle is full geographic number portability, about which we are continuing to put pressure on ICASA.”
Vox Orion is unique in offering its voice customers a share of the revenue from inbound voice traffic, further helping to slash their overall telecoms bills. “Interconnect means other providers pay us to terminate their calls,” he says. “But we're a low cost operation compared to most of the other operators; we have chosen to pass some of those savings on to our customers.” Inbound minutes represent approximately 50% of the total minutes. Cristal Vox ensures that a customer receives a benefit on the calls that were previously excluded.
The upshot, says Du Toit, is that “corporates who choose a Cristal Vox will save across the board, in some cases by up to 70% of their total telecoms bill, if you include the share on inbound revenue”.
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