BT launches Featurenet SmartNumbers

London, England. February 2006

BT today announced the availability of Featurenet SmartNumbers, providing businesses with a rich portfolio of next generation voice services for their Featurenet Hosted Voice platform.

Featurenet SmartNumbers deliver on the promise of convergence by enabling organisations to enjoy benefits such as location-independent working, collaboration, CTI and business application integration with the resilience and reliability they have come to expect from BT Featurenet.

Many organisations may be considering a move to Voice over IP in order to achieve lower call-costs and deliver advanced communication services to their users. Featurenet SmartNumbers delivers these next generation services both on today's networks and through migration onto the next generation networks. These new services are delivered from the network and provide:

• Integrated directories with click-dial and incoming call announcement
• Unified Messaging (with voice-2-email, fax-2-email, SMS alerts)
• CTI integration with business applications such as CRM and Microsoft Live Communication Server
• Virtual Team Working (with presence, broadcast messaging and collaboration across groups)
• Network-based IVR, ACD and real-time wall-boards

Peter Donovan, Head of BT Featurenet said: “The market clearly distinguishes between next generation networks and next generation services. Whereas the next generation networks promise the cost-savings through the rationalisation of their voice and data infrastructure, it is next generation Services that can deliver most value to the business over time. Featurenet SmartNumbers enables frictionless communication between companies, their employees, suppliers and partners. This helps organisations to be more efficient, more responsive and more easily able to deliver customer service at the pace and quality demanded today.”

Prior to this announcement, organisations looking to enjoy the benefits of next generation voice services were forced down the path of network convergence first, which for many requires significant investment in both time and resources. Featurenet SmartNumbers turns this proposition on its head by delivering these on today’s network. However since SmartNumbers operates across both Featurenet as well as BT’s next generation VoIP networks, customers can be assured that they have a simple migration path for these services when the business case behind next generation networks supports the migration to VoIP.

In addition to providing a new class of rich telephony services, Featurenet SmartNumbers opens up a whole new class of mission-critical business applications, including:

• Hot-desking and Flexible Working
• Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery
• Enterprise-Class Voice and Fax mail
• Virtual Contact Centres

Geoffrey Paterson, CEO of SmartNumbers commented: “This announcement represents an important extension to our supplier relationship with BT. BT and SmartNumbers have invested heavily to ensure that these next generation services are an integral part of both the business process and the network so that customers can have a facility which aids a tight control of costs with a single point of access for ordering, provisioning, support and billing. Organisations that appreciate the flexibility and cost benefits of hosted telephony also appreciate the benefits of hosted services.”

About BT

BT is one of the world's leading providers of communications solutions serving customers in Europe, the Americas and Asia Pacific. Its principal activities include networked IT services, local, national and international telecommunications services, and higher-value broadband and internet products and services. BT consists principally of three lines of business:

• BT Retail, providing a comprehensive range of communications and related services to more than 20m UK consumers and businesses.
• BT Wholesale, providing network services and solutions within the UK to more than 600 fixed and mobile operators and service providers including the provision of broadband and private circuits.
• BT Global Services, providing networked IT services to meet the needs of multi-site organisations globally. BT Global Services operates in more than 130 countries and also offers international carrier services.