Frontier Communications is now offering its customers a cloud-based unified communications-as-a-service to help them migrate their voice services to the cloud.
Frontier's AnyWare UCaaS allows small- to medium-sized business and enterprise customers to lease phones and equipment without having to worry about stranding investments in outdated gear.
The scalable and customizable platform can be adapted for each company's specific needs. Customers are able to save money by putting former hardware functions into the cloud while also reducing the cost of investing in and maintaining on-premise PBX systems.
While Frontier has been offering AnyWare services since 2014, it hosts UCaaS on its own network. According to a company spokesman, the service is architected as a virtual, self-contained PBX that uses Frontier's data centers.
The cloud-based communications can be offered across any broadband or data network. AnyWare UCaaS can also be combined with Frontier's Ethernet services.
The platform helps businesses become more mobile-centric by providing the flexibility necessary to operate across iOS, Android, PC and Mac applications on a variety of devices. The service platform features a monthly subscription rate and can accommodate the various types of users a business may have. The service starts at $19.99 a month, but goes down to $12.99 when it's bundled with Frontier's broadband or internet services.
"Today, our customers want to migrate their voice and collaboration needs to the cloud,” said Ken Arndt, executive vice president of commercial sales for Frontier, in a prepared statement. “Frontier AnyWare lets customers manage their business with a flexible, scalable, mobile, and affordable collaboration solution powered by Frontier’s Cloud. With Frontier AnyWare’s mobile app, businesses can focus on their customers without managing a complex communications infrastructure."
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The UCaaS business has been booming of late. In the most recent fourth quarter, more than 300,000 subscriber seats were added to the global installed base, which is now growing by 29% per year, according to Synergy Research. Mitel and RingCentral were the top-two UCaaS companies in Synergy Research's fourth quarter report. Combined, the two companies accounted for more than half of all the growth in the fourth quarter.
Other UCaaS competitors in Frontier's footprint include Charter Spectrum, Comcast and 8x8.