MTN Business slashes fixed call rates by almost 20% for enterprise customers

1 March 2012 – Johannesburg; The availability of affordable, true converged solutions for enterprises has, up until now, been an elusive dream. Mostly due to impractical broader industry promises and buzz words that have been prevalent in the market and in some cases, lack of necessary transparency to a phased and sustained approach to realising true convergence or Fixed Mobile Convergence (FMC).

“But this is changing,” says Angela Gahagan-Thomson, managing executive of MTN Business. “We believe that the local industry is fast approaching the stage where any size business can enjoy the benefits of REAL convergence, thanks to service providers who are adamant to achieve true FMC for their customers – through a transparent process, fighting industry standards and removing common uncertainty, no matter how unpopular – to provide increased efficiencies and value.”

MTN Business has, over the last two years, showcased its custodian approach to delivering REAL FMC to the marketplace and is excited and well positioned to offer this technology in its phased approach – a technology that promises to make bold changes to the face of commerce locally. Continues Gahagan-Thomson; “We are determined to offer customers a new unified communication experience via hosted services and enterprise apps from the cloud while understanding that reducing overall communication expenditure is a critical component to uptake. As a result, we will be significantly reducing our fixed line costs by almost 20%, from 1 March 2012, in yet another step to realising this goal.”

This price reduction, coupled with MTN Business's full set of fixed converged service offerings allows enterprises to really take advantage of a truly converged product offering. In line with this, MTN Business offers the following communication products in conjunction with the fixed call rates:

• MTN SIP Trunking – this allows customers to use their existing PBX hardware and phones to make and receive calls without using the traditional telco providers, connections or premicell least cost routers.

• MTN Hosted PBX – this provides a fully featured hosted PBX in the cloud, which therefore replaces the onsite PBX hardware as well as the expensive maintenance contracts and hardware and software upgrades typically required for legacy PBX systems.

• MTN Hosted Call Centre – this provides low cost call centre functionality provided through the cloud.

• MTN Advanced Contact Centre – this offers a cloud based advance contact centre providing in and outbound call routing, full multimedia (Fax, E-mail, Chat and Web) routing, Interactive Voice Response (IVR), Outbound dialling solution, workforce optimisation tools, call recording and a full suite of reporting tools for agents, supervisors and call centre managers.

• MTN UniPresence – a product that allows any cellular device to become an extension of an organisation's Managed IP PBX, as it offers all the features and functionality of a traditional PABX system, however, it does not require desk phones anymore, as users can make and receive calls wherever they are – through one single number as though they are sitting at their workstations.

In essence, with true FMC, the mobile phone officially becomes a true extension of the enterprise's PBX. Organisations will have the ability to dramatically reduce their voice bill, while increasing productivity, and fixed and mobile users can share the same interfaces to the network on a single core network. So in essence no matter the size of the business, it needs just one number, which provides substantial potential for businesses on the move, as not only does it allow business to be conducted effectively anywhere, but users can switch from a Mobile to a IP network seamlessly and securely, as well as between devices interchangeably as necessary.

“The 'dream' of merging the desk and mobile phone will soon become a reality and as we near our third and final phase of true Fixed Mobile Convergence, it's my opinion that it will signify a fundamental shift in the way South African businesses conduct operations, manage cost centres and deliver services – and what better way than to lead with a significant reduction in Fixed Call Rates! It's just a matter of time before we physically see the benefits and bold changes that FMC will make to the face of commerce locally,” concludes Gahagan-Thomson.