XO Communications is dipping into the cloud communications solution market as it announced today that it will help businesses transition to IP communications and achieve better cost savings across their enterprise with a new solution.

Launched today at Enterprise Connect, XO Enterprise Cloud Communications is a “highly scalable, enterprise-grade, IP communications service” that allows businesses to accelerate the deployment of IP and unified communications, simplify the management of their IP communications needs, and reduce the capital investments and operating costs of their enterprise-wide communications, according to company officials.

“XO Enterprise Cloud Communications represents the next evolution of our award-winning IP communications portfolio which today supports 30,000 business customers and more than one million end users,” said Mike Toplisek, chief marketing officer for XO Business Services at XO Communications (News - Alert), in a statement. “This solution is ideal for mid-market businesses and larger enterprises with distributed operations by helping them solve important business issues of controlling costs, improving employee productivity and increasing their competitiveness in the market.”

XO Communications is one of the nation’s largest communications service providers focused exclusively on businesses, government, domestic and international telecommunications carriers, cable companies, content providers and mobile wireless companies, according to the company.

The company’s new cloud communications solution integrates a wide range of IP telephony features including local and long distance calling, enterprise-wide HD voice and video, network services, and IP phone sets in a communications as a service (CaaS), per-user pricing model to allow IT administrators to easily deliver and manage voice, video and communications across their enterprise. By consolidating and delivering these services in the cloud, XO Communications is aiming to bring end-to-end communications to businesses and organizations of all sizes at a lower total cost of ownership than traditional telephony systems.

The solution is ideal for enterprises looking to reduce their capital expenditures as the cloud allows business to take advantage of the benefits of IP communications without having the extensive upfront capital costs of installing equipment. 

“Today, businesses with multiple locations of varying sizes typically have a wide range of different telephony infrastructures that not only inhibit efficient and seamless communications but also the integration of telephony infrastructures with applications which enable unified communications,” said Tom Hobika, vice president of solutions engineering at XO Communications, in a statement. “Our innovative, cloud-based enterprise IP communications platform will help businesses contain and reduce capital expenditures at a time when budgets are tight, while giving them the ability to introduce new productivity enhancing communications capabilities that future-proof their networks and corresponding investments.”

XO Enterprise Cloud Communications offers businesses a wide range of cost, operational and performance benefits, including:

-          Eliminating capital investments in PBX (News - Alert) infrastructure and reducing operational costs

-          Freeing up valuable IT resources and capital which can be focused on strategic business priorities

-          Gaining the ability to quickly deploy new productivity-enhancing collaboration and communications technologies

-          Managing the upgrades and maintenance costs typically associated with handling IP communications and other information technology in-house

-          Providing business-grade HD call quality across the enterprise wide area network

-          Delivering advanced IP-PBX functionality using the XO nationwide network, advanced technology from BroadSoft (News - Alert) and IP phones from Cisco and Polycom for a unified solution of HD voice and video and IP telephony applications through the cloud

-          Easily managing the service through a feature-rich web portal to handle day-to-day administrative tasks such as reconfiguring users’ phones, set up phones for new employees and manage name and number displays.

“Cloud-based communications are rapidly gaining traction as businesses look to adopt IP telephony and unified communications in a flexible and cost-effective way,” said Elka Popova, program director, Unified Communications & Collaboration, Frost & Sullivan (News - Alert), in a statement. “With a long track record of delivering business VoIP services, XO Communications is now expanding its portfolio to include a feature-rich, hosted IP PBX solution that enables customers to fully outsource their communications infrastructure from a trusted partner.  XO Enterprise Cloud Communications solution can help distributed organizations save costs through a common architecture and enhance employee productivity through advanced communications and collaboration applications delivered across geographically dispersed locations.”