The enhancements centred around its main offices in Hong Kong and Singapore, as well as points of access in 30 Asian countries, and allow customers to interconnect via managed IP or QoS-based VPN, it claimed. iBasis said service providers in the region can now use its network, in particular its Premium Voice service, for all for their intra-regional voice traffic.
Prior to the upgrade, the voice traffic it handled that originated in Asia was routed through an iBasis facility in Amsterdam before being routed back to its Asian destination. By keeping traffic inside its regional footprint, iBasis said customers can expect lower latency, higher quality and more flexibility in interconnect options.
“The Asia-Pac market has a huge volume of intra-regional voice traffic that, prior to regional routing, we were not able to handle at the quality level we need to provide,” said Chris Ward, senior director of marketing communications with iBasis. “There are carriers within Asia who terminate intra-regional traffic, obviously, via bilateral agreements. We’re not aware of any other global wholesale voice carrier though which can do it without taking the traffic out of the region and tromboning it back.”
He said that as well as selling out-of-region destinations to Asian carriers, iBasis can now sell them in-region destinations: “We can deliver the desired quality,” he claimed. “This gives carriers in the region another choice for their intra-regional traffic.”
He said the company has plans to implement similar regional routing in Latin America, later this year.
