The Zoom Phone Provider Exchange can now provide customers with a choice of global voice service providers in more than 70 countries.
Bring Your Own Carrier (BYOC) connectivity can now include more regions without Zoom-based calling plans, allowing Zoom Phone users to add their preferred PSTN provider partners while keeping their existing contracts, phone numbers, and calling rates.
Zoom’s Provider Exchange program was first revealed at its Zoomtopia 2021 partner event. The program grew out of its Bring Your Own Carrier (BYOC) Cloud Peering Partner Program to provide customers with greater choice in terms of PSTN providers.
Ryan Perry, Strategic Business Development at Zoom, said: “Migrating to a cloud phone system can benefit any organisation, helping you access the most up-to-date features, better support remote and hybrid teams, more quickly scale to meet your business needs, and help reduce the total cost of ownership of your communications platform.
“While full of advantages, cloud phone systems still require connectivity to a PSTN network to make calls outside of a business. For companies with multiple sites in different geographies, this can be challenging, as it requires the ability to pick the right connectivity option and provision callers.
“While Zoom Phone offers pre-packaged service plans across the globe, customers with more complex calling plans, coverage, and managed services can turn to our vast partner network to help address their needs.”
Zoom lists 48 “ZP Native Countries”, which include Argentina, Costa Rica, Estonia, and France. There are also 28 “Non-Native Countries”, such as Albania, Georgia, Kenya, and Malta. Finally, Zoom has shared six “Non-Native in progress” countries: Brunei, Iceland, Laos, Myanmar (Burma), Saint Martin, and the U.S. Virgin Islands.
In total, there are 76 native and non-native countries with the Zoom Phone Provider exchange offering active service options, and a further six countries are in the process of joining the program.
Provider Exchange Partners
The first round of Provider Exchange partners are SIPPIO, Pure IP, NUWAVE Communications, and 1-TO-ALL.
SIPPIO offers full calling capabilities in over 74 countries with emergency services, toll-free and no code, build or maintenance required.
Pure IP joined the Zoom Phone Provider Exchange program in April, and it offers fully managed voice services with automated number provisioning. It has been designed for global business, and it is built around a secure, reliable, and adaptable global voice network. It also has a 24/7 global support team.
NUWAVE Communications connects to Zoom Phone through its SYNTHESIS platform, enabling carriers to link to Zoom Phone and scale their networks globally. NUWAVE’s iPILOT platform provides automation, analytics, number provisioning, and a single pane of glass through which customers can manage their services.
1-TO-ALL is a VoIP, video telephony, SMS, and UC service provider and distributor. It offers more than a billion messages and minutes annually to businesses and service providers globally. 1-TO-ALL currently provides services to 15 countries, including Thailand, where Zoom describes it as a ‘leading provider.’
Perry describes the program from a user experience perspective: “As an enhancement to our existing Bring Your Own Carrier (BYOC) Cloud Peering Partner Program, Zoom Phone Provider Exchange will enable service provider partners to provide a flexible solution for customers around the globe looking to communicate effectively and efficiently.
“Using the Zoom Phone Provider Exchange is easy! From the Provider Exchange page within the Zoom Phone admin portal, customers can browse and select the provider and country of their choice.
“From there, they can seamlessly provision phone numbers over an authorised connection, without having to establish a separate relationship with another provider.”
Customer benefits of the Zoom Provider Exchange are greater carrier choices, more services from carrier partners, self-service phone numbers, and simplified PSTN procurement and number provisioning.
The Zoom Provider Exchange gives partners the chance to grow their business and get added to the Zoom App Marketplace, increase revenue, and utilise Zoom’s partner documentation and toolkit to speed up and simplify the process.
UC Today spoke about Zoom Phone Provider Exchange’s core features and how it works with Ian Guest, Marketing Director at Pure IP and Josh Stanley, Sales Strategy Specialist at Zoom.
Zoom has also recently released ‘Zoom One’, which combines popular business applications into a six-tiered package.
