Vistula Communications Services, Inc., a global supplier of flexible and reliable Voice over Internet Protocol ("VoIP") services to major telecommunications carriers and Internet service providers, announced that Telstra Europe has officially launched their V-Cube-based Hosted IP- PBX Service across the UK.

Richard Gandon head of Product Management and Development at Telstra Europe said, "I am pleased to announce that as of Monday 3rd July 2006, Telstra is able to offer a SIP-based, Voice over IP, Hosted PBX solution that provides a highly competitive alternative to traditional PBXs."

Richard went on to say, "This offer is another example of the execution of our strategy to deliver global IP services to enterprises on both a direct basis and indirectly by working with partners to create IP solutions for resellers serving small and medium-sized enterprises. Our Hosted PBX service is a compelling solution that integrates the performance and resilience of our flexible IP and Voice capabilities with an advanced suite of IP PBX services from Vistula Communications. With this package, small and medium enterprises can take the first step towards implementing IP telephony."

A truly 'converged' set of end-to-end services

Telstra's Hosted PBX offers three pay-as-you-go service bundles for standard, enhanced and premium users, plus an operator console for multi-line call supervision. Some of the other features include voicemail (accessible via phone or web interface), abbreviated dialling, conferencing, a soft phone and roaming. A Web portal is provided for users and administrators to manage their service profiles and to provide performance statistics and billing information. Geographic and non-geographic numbers are also available.

The service can be scaled up or down in step with an enterprise's changing needs and includes a choice of network access options from Telstra's portfolio. Consolidating voice and data traffic over a single IP platform opens the way for considerable savings on network costs. Charges are levied on a monthly per-user basis, making telecom budgeting easier. All on-net calls are included in the monthly recurring cost of the extension, including calls between different sites. The service is available initially in the UK.

David Jones, Managing Director of Communications Advisory Services, a Telstra customer said, "We took a tiered approach to implementation starting with a LAN upgrade. We successfully transferred our fax and broadband service to Telstra and then installed the IP Phones which worked immediately. The quality of the service is excellent and beyond our expectations. The use of the hosted PBX technology is most valuable for companies like ours that want the flexibility to grow without any restrictions. Telstra's hosted system represents a business enabler for us and not a business barrier as we have felt with other systems in the past."

Adam Bishop, CEO of Vistula UK, said, "Many people have worked very hard and broken new ground to bring this product successfully to market and I could not be more pleased with the reaction of Telstra and Telstra's customers."

Mr. Bishop continued, "We have benefited tremendously from Telstra's depth of experience which has meant that they are able to go to market with an extremely robust, feature rich and usable service set. We are very excited about the future which has started with Vistula providing one of the first fully operational Hosted IP-PBX services in the world."