TELEFÓNICA IRELAND, which operates the O2 brand, is to launch a new hosted internet telephony service aimed at large private and public sector organisations.

The company has teamed up with network equipment maker Cisco to deliver this service. O2 Unified Communications will eliminate the need for organisations to have expensive private branch exchange systems or line rental physically located on their sites.

Instead, centralised telephony and communications services will be hosted and located separately in Telefónica’s two Irish data centres, where it has installed Cisco virtualisation and unified communications technology.

While the service will be tailored for each customer, Telefónica says typical savings are in the region of 30 per cent.

Alan Brown, business director at Telefónica Ireland, said these reductions come from customers moving their communications spending from a capital expenditure to an operational expenditure model, paying a monthly fee per user.

The savings also come from a reduction in the number of fixed lines, and renegotiated maintenance contracts for hardware.

Many of the major telecoms operators are in the process of positioning themselves as total communications providers, aiming to provide a wide range of data networking and telephony services over fixed-line and mobile connections.

“To meet our customers’ needs we need to have a broader set of products. It crosses into fixed telephony business and now into our IT business as well,” said Mr Brown.

The benefit for customers is that they can reduce their telecoms costs and simplify the management of their systems by sourcing everything from a single supplier.

As its name suggests, unified communications makes people contactable whatever their location, or whatever the device they are using.

Mr Brown said the company has already held proof-of-concept demonstrations with customers, showing how a person could be talking on their mobile while returning to the office, and then seamlessly transferring that call to their desk phone or personal computer, with the option of adding video.

Mr Brown said O2 expects to sign two customers for its unified communications service in the new year: one a multinational and the other an indigenous company, both with several sites around Ireland.