Telviva has launched a new voice service through Telviva One, which allows South African businesses with operations in the UK to benefit from free internal calls between their operations, easily transfer calls between offices in SA and the UK, and even benefit from local rates by easily switching telephone lines. It also means that they only need one business communications partner for their local and UK operations.
Following recent changes in South Africa’s telecommunications regulations, organisations with international operations are facing significant cost increases. At first glance, these regulations call for a reduction in call termination rates between domestic network operators, which bodes well for those who make local calls. However, the same changes also saw international inbound call termination rates being deregulated, with operators increasing the termination rate from around 10c to R2.10 per minute in order to compensate for lost revenue from reduced local interconnect rates.
This has led to international voice calls to some destinations increasing by nearly 30 times, placing an additional financial burden on businesses that have operations across multiple countries, and on local business process outsourcing (BPO) or contact centre operators who are looking to serve international customers.
A unique solution for business
With there being many South African organisations doing business in the UK, Telviva has launched a voice service that is aimed at mitigating against these changes, and ensuring that they can continue to communicate cost-effectively across geographies.
The Telviva One SA/UK service, which is designed to help organisations seamlessly navigate their business requirements in SA as well as for their UK and other operations, is delivered through Telviva Software International (TSI), which has a presence in AWS Ireland. In order to benefit from the service, the business needs to be registered within the UK or a UK Crown Dependency.
Organisations that operate across South Africa and the UK also have to deal with a different regulatory environment in each country, and Telviva’s industry experience will help them comply with relevant legislation. This includes rules about minimum ring time for unanswered calls, rules requiring a live operator for repeat calls within 72 hours after an abandoned call, and the requirement for the presented number to be diallable with an agent available. Getting this is crucial, as non-compliance in the UK can lead to heavy financial penalties, with fines of up to £250 000 levied on those who don’t adhere to the rules.
Telviva has further demonstrated its commitment to international best practice when it comes to business communications by being registered with the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC), including the Robocall Mitigation Database, and with the Irish Commission for Communications Regulation (ComReg).
One voice service, two extensions
Businesses making use of the service get a ‘free’ second extension on the Telviva PBX, enabling users to easily make calls while benefiting from local call rates in either South Africa or the UK, with this second extension being registered by TSI. Since they are on the Telviva network, they also stand to benefit from being part of a cloud free-call community of over 90 000 users, including MS Teams users who are connected to Telviva’s network.
- How the Telviva One SA/UK service works:
- Users access the service just like any other Telviva One user – through the website, or mobile or desktop app.
- The Telviva One user interface lets them know which ‘location’ they are using, and allows them to easily switch between their primary and secondary locations.
- When needing to make calls to SA, they can switch their PBX location to SA and then proceed to make calls as though they were based in the country – no need for international dialling codes and they benefit from local call rates.
- Similarly, they can switch their PBX location to the UK, allowing them to make calls without needing to include international prefixes, and to benefit from local call rates within the UK.
Given that the service makes use of a data connection rather than legacy telephone networks, there is minimal call latency, which in any case does not have as huge an impact on a voice call as on a video call.
Telviva can set up the service in as little as a day once all required documentation is received, and this quick deployment time can be especially valuable for businesses, particularly when they are looking to get started in the UK. And, just as is the case for South African users, companies making use of the service in the UK will be able to integrate Telviva One with their back-end business systems, enabling better quality, personalised conversations, and have access to third-party services such as analytics and reporting, or cloud-based call recording.
Does your business operate in South Africa as well as the UK? Are you looking to reduce telephony costs and cut down on business communications complexity while ensuring you comply with the relevant regulations? Contact Telviva today.
By Rob Lith, CCO at Telviva.
