Agito Networks is targeting big enterprises that want to cut down on all those expensive roaming fees that workers accumulate when traveling internationally. The company today announced the availability of Agito Global Enterprise.
The solution includes Agito’s RoamAnywhere Mobility Router v4.0, and as the name (sort of) implies, it aims to reduce international cellular charges by up to 80 percent. The latest release adds support for the Apple iPhone and iPod Touch, as well as the BlackBerry Bold 9700.
Last week, Apple said it was allowing VoIP services to run over 3G networks on the iPhone. Previously, VoIP was allowed only over Wi-Fi.
Agito’s focus on international roaming costs doesn’t mean it isn’t delivering the same great mobile unified communications (UC) or in-building solutions that it’s been known for, says Pejman Roshan, Agito founder and chief marketing officer. But to simplify the message, the company is zeroing in on the cost-savings aspect.
The latest release targets companies with thousands of mobile users – up to 10,000 users can be supported in a single appliance. Roshan declined to name specific customers due to confidentiality, but he identified general areas, such as government, finance/banking, accounting, large tech companies and others that employ thousands.
While a lot of companies are talking about delivering VoIP over 3G networks for consumers, Agito says it is focused squarely on the enterprise. Roshan says Agito has a solid audio engine and various techniques that its engineers built so that the voice transmission sounds better than a lot of standard VoIP solutions out there. The company also designed its solution to protect against anyone trying to decrypt a call, and it integrates with the PBX.
The company also revised existing pricing, lowering it for high-volume purchases, so it’s $200 per user for the first 100 users and goes down to $64 per user at 5,000 users. A new subscription-based pricing option involves a monthly subscription charge per user, and that ranges from $11 to $2 per month based on volume.
As for Agito’s future, Roshan says there’s no question that carriers will get more directly involved in the VoIP space, and when they do, he believes they’ll look to companies like Agito to build the product for their enterprise user base.
Can carriers undercut Agito on pricing? Yes and no, he says. For domestic pricing, they did just that with new unlimited voice plans. “We knew that was going to be a possibility,” he says. But international rates don’t work the same way. Vodafone, for example, charges a termination fee to AT&T to complete a roaming call, and he doesn’t see that changing, even though there have been attempts to do so in the European Union.
Roshan says the engineers at Agito are fans of Android, but the e-mail support and policies for managing the devices from an enterprise perspective still need some work, so they’re holding off for now until some issues are worked out, similar to how enterprises didn’t immediately embrace the iPhone when it first came out.
Pricing for the new RoamAnywhere v4.0 solution starts at about $9,995 for the 2000 Series, $26,995 for the 4000 Series and $34,995 for the 6000 Series. The new version, including the RoamAnywhere 6000 Series, will be available later this quarter.
