Saicom Voice Services has entered into a strategic partnership with SEACOM to allow SEACOM to provide Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) and Cloud PBX services over a white-label platform to corporate and SME customers.

“We are looking to build long-term relationships with trusted partners and the strength of our partnerships have been key to the success of our business right from the beginning.

Our strategy is to build our channel platform in order for resellers to partner with us and in turn extend their service offering to their customers with voice solutions,” says Greg de Chasteauneuf, chief technology officer at Saicom Voice Services.

Through the partnership, SEACOM will offer voice services to its growing customer base, in addition to its existing high-speed internet access and cloud services.

“We were looking for a voice partner that uses reliable and high-quality infrastructure, and Saicom Voice Services’ Broadsoft carrier-grade platform gave us the quality assurance that we needed.  Having a full-fledged IP telephony solution completes our service offerings to customers in terms of data and voice,” says Grant Parker, head of SEACOM Business.

“Our platform allows SEACOM to operate autonomously and to support its clients on an end-to-end basis without having to own the infrastructure. The confirmation of the strength of our channel platform is in how quickly SEACOM could sell and deliver services to their customers. They were able to deploy their VoIP and Cloud PBX offering within a couple of months as opposed to a couple of years,” adds de Chasteauneuf.

Another factor that clinched the partnership was Saicom Voice Services’ Cloud PBX portal for customers. “The premise of our offering to our business customers is that they need to have an effortless experience when doing business with us and the Cloud PBX portal is easy to interact with, which was another criteria we had when we evaluated potential voice partners. We want to make sure that we have an outside-in approach, meaning that we look at what customers want, how they want to interact with us, and then we make it easy for them to do business with us,” says Parker.

de Chasteauneuf adds that the company’s strong suit is its ability to deliver what is required to ensure that its channel partners’ customers experience a smooth installation and excellent service.

With the ability of fibre to scale bandwidth, SEACOM is well positioned to offer fully-converged services that enable both data and voice, and other value-added services, on one medium. “We own the undersea fibre cable system and supply all Tier 1 internet service providers (ISPs) in South Africa as well as all Tier 1 ISPs in countries where our cable system lands, including Mozambique, Tanzania, Kenya and now also Uganda. We may look at extending these new services into these markets in the near future,” adds Parker.

SEACOM’s new voice offering forms part of its suite of value-add services that enable businesses to unlock the power of the internet and cloud in order to grow and support their operations. “The feedback we have received is that customers are happy with the service and impressed that the installations have gone so smoothly,” says Parker.

Corporate and SME customers are going to reap the benefits. “SEACOM’s stature gives us added credibility in the marketplace and its fibre coverage across the country allows us to open our voice channel to all areas of South Africa,” says de Chasteauneuf.