HCL Infinet plans Internet telephony for corporates

NEW DELHI: After rolling out Internet telephony for the retail segment, HCL Infinet, the ISP arm of the HCL group, is now set to offer it to corporates.
HCL Infinet’s rates which are a fraction of the rates charged from a normal PSTN phone but slightly higher compared to the retail Net telephony rates, can prove to be a major cost saver for corporates.
“We’ve already roped in two customers for the corporate ILD service and will offer it in all 43 cities that Infinet is present,� Saurav Adhikari, CEO of HCL Infinet said. Depending on the rate charged, HCL Infinet will route calls from the customer’s premises to the ISP through a leased line, ISDN or wireless.
For every call, Infinet will ensure at least 17 kbps of bandwidth is available for a two-way voice interaction. The minimum bandwidth necessary for a voice call is 12 kbps. However, even this is difficult to get during peak hours due to high congestion in the networks of Indian ISPs.
For an one-minute call to the US, a corporate client will pay Rs 7.50 compared to Rs 6 in the retail segment and Rs 40 from a normal phone. A corporate customer, depending on the type of channel (leased line, ISDN or wireless) he chooses, will be able to buy minutes from the ISP much like one does in the retail segment.
If the traffic in the public Internet domain is very high, Net2Phone will reroute the calls through its own lines or bandwidth taken from long distance carriers thus ensuring that quality of the call do not suffer due to congestion.
HCL Infinet is also launching access device for consumers and corporates to make Internet telephony available to consumers without a PC.