petersaville.net

British telecommunications firm BT Group PLC is investing $21 million on a global platform to provide voice calling over the Internet.

It is believed that half of the investment will go into developing the platform for the Asia-Pacific region. The new platform will allow telephone customers to save money by switching from the company's traditional phone system to the new VOIP infrastructure. VoIP breaks sounds into data packets that travel over the Internet and get reassembled on the recipient's end and played back in real-time allowing telephone quality conversations

The BT platform will be able to support services such as voice calls, e-mails and videoconferences. Upon completion this year, it will cover 17 countries including Australia, China, Hong Kong, India, Japan, South Korea, Singapore and Taiwan.

Last year, BT invested $48 million to roll out an Internet-based network in Asia-Pacific. The network helps boost the company's capacity in handling larger volumes of traffic and serves as an integrated platform for voice, data and video transmission.

In Australia prominent pharmacy company Soul Patternsons subsidiary Soul Patterson Telemedia owns and operates an extensive IP network providing VOIP, Video and teleconferencing and other products.

# posted by Peter Saville - IT Consultant @ 3:16 AM