Mobile Advisor

After first announcing the service last year, Vodafone Australia is now accepting customers for its Vodafone Business One unified communications services aimed at small and medium businesses.

Vodafone has partnered with Cisco and Research In Motion to offer a managed, integrated telephony platform across IP and GSM networks.

The service is available as two “bundles” - a voice only package and a Wi-Fi package – and both require a Cisco ISR appliance on the premises.

The equipment is offered on a rental plan over a 48-month contract with the option to review the services plan after the first 24 months so customers are on the “most suitable” plan for to the second 24 months of the contract, according to Vodafone.

Pricing for the Wi-Fi bundle ranges from $2599 per month (up to 24 users) to $9999 per month (up to 96 users) and from $1999 per month to $7999 per month for the voice package.

Vodafone Australia's general manager of business markets, Hugh Humphrey, said the company is bringing “genuine innovation and value to the market at a time when it is needed most”.

The new voice package offers customers the same feature set and some of the managed services of the original Business One service, but without the on-premise Wi-Fi and some hardware elements.

“While developing our Vodafone Business One service suite, we recognised that businesses come in all shapes and sizes and that not every small business requires the full Wi-Fi service,” Humphrey said. “With Vodafone Business One, there is now no excuse for Australian businesses to waste money on expensive fixed line rentals while managing multiple service providers and high operational costs.”

Other new features include online (Web-based) voicemail; inbound voice services like 13, 1300 and 1800 numbers; domain name hosting; and a remote office bundle.

Also new is the “Solution Binder” which allows customers to choose the service bundle and options upfront that are most suitable for their business.