BT launches ‘Voice Continuity’

BT has announced the launch of Voice Continuity, a new family of business continuity services for UK voice networks. The service covers regular telephone calls, faxes and data calls, ensuring that in any circumstances, calls will always be received. Using Voice Continuity it is possible to pre-arrange up to five different diversion plans which can be instantly selected depending on which is most appropriate in any given situation. The service includes the ability for authorised staff to override the current diversion plan and ‘pull’ calls to their current location.

During normal operation, calls will be delivered to the users’ voice network in the normal way, without any change to call-flow. However, should the service detect a failure in either the local exchange, the connection to the exchange, or the connection to an organisation’s internal voice network, the service automatically routes incoming calls to the preferred secondary location.

Organisation’s have a number of options for diverting calls including mobile phones, home phones or even international offices. In this way, the BT solution ensures that incoming calls can continue to flow without the need for manual intervention.

In the event of an emergency the standard set-up can be over-ridden by making a telephone call to the service help desk. In such a situation Voice Continuity tests each incoming call, determining how it should be delivered and all incoming voice calls can be immediately routed to an announcement service, where they are handled automatically whilst staff are evacuated from the affected location.

Ray Stanton, global head of BT’s business continuity, security and governance practice, said: “Most organisations have for a long time meticulously planned disaster recovery strategies for their data, network and business applications. In the event of an emergency though, the most vital network to maintain is the voice one. Failure to plan for this creates a major hole in any business continuity plan. This service has been designed specifically to address that gap.

“Business continuity should not be viewed as a box-ticking exercise. It’s about protecting revenue and reputation. In today’s fast-paced economy, companies cannot afford to be out of reach from their customers and key stakeholders for long. The very real fear should be, ‘If I’m not working, is someone going to take my business and clients?”

The BT Voice Continuity service is currently only available in the UK.

www.btvoicecontinuity.com

•Date: 5th February 2008• Region: UK •Type: Article •Topic: Telecoms continuity
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