Communications as a Service (CaaS) Featured Article

Allstream Provides UC Service across U.S.-Canada Border

By Casey Houser
Contributing Writer

Allstream, a company known in Canada for its unified communications (UC) software and connectivity solutions, recently announced that it has partnered with eLoyalty (News - Alert) to allow its clients to connect across the U.S.-Canada border.

Allstream’s Hosted Collaboration Solutions (HCS) software platform has made it easy for many businesses to handle communications within their enterprises. Now, that same application will include cross-border service in the same cloud-based format to which its clients have become accustomed. This can be a perfect fit for those organizations that have multiple locations and, until now, have had to use two or more hosting companies to keep their communications in working order.

Edith Cloutier, the vice president of sales and marketing at Allstream, speak to that point and mentions several other benefits that clients can expect from HCS.

“Our Hosted Collaboration Solution is backed by the security and reliability of our national fiber network and, being a cloud-based service, offers customers the benefits of simpler budgeting and greater agility with their IT and collaboration services when operating in both countries,” Cloutier said.

Enterprises that wish to use the service and initiate their purchases from either the U.S. or Canadian side of the border, can handle their transactions in either country’s currency. They pay for only the seats they use in each month, so the service can grow as the enterprise grows. But it never charges for more than the enterprise uses.

Clients can also take advantage of the redundancy of customer data collection that occurs from within the unified communications package. Allstream handles the collection and redundancy of data in locations that correspond to each enterprise’s location. This way, clients will never need to handle data from across a border.

This combination of efforts from Allstream and eLoyalty tries to make the operation of multiple sites, in multiple countries, as seamless as possible. Customers receive voice, video, presence, and mobility features so all their devices can work with the unified communications suite and every employee can complete their work inside and outside the office – regardless of hardware preference.