Daily News 2004/08/30

AT&T cooperates with Amazon to provide VoIP services and cease the voice service

　　On August 26, AT&T announced that it would cooperate with Amazon.com to provide CallVantage VoIPservice to the customers.
Early this week, AT&T signed a similar agreement with BestBuy, which, According to the analyst, shows that VoIP service has become the long-term strategic objective of AT&T.

　　Up until now, AT&T has established cooperation relationship with Comcast, Time Warner Cable TV and Cox Telecommunication for the market promotion of CallVantageVoIP service. AT&T is providing VoIP service in 170 regions in USA.

　　According to the analyst, the reason why VoIP service is so popular is the low cost for both the provider and the users. Since VoIP service is based on Internet and is very economic.

Beijing ToneThink win the contract from China Rail-Sino Telecommunication for CallThink Call Center

　　The intelligent service platform of China Rail-Sino Telecommunication Co., Ltd. is a multi-media call center and intelligent telecommunication service platform integrating the telecommunication resources of the company based on the principle of nationwide access, content release, whole-network control and seats distribution. It is constructed on the powerful fixed telephone network, forming a nationwide multi-media call center service network. You can get access through telephone, fax, WEB, EMAIL (95105***) to various kinds of services (manual service, auto voice service, WEB) , including software service, hardware service, service supervision, telecommunication resources and so on to improve the communications between the enterprises/institutes and the users. Besides, the platform can also provide various kinds of value-added services to help reduce the telecommunication cost, improve the service quality.
The system platform will be constructed by two stages (first stage for the construction of Xi'an Center, the second stage for the construction of Beijing Center and Guangzhou Center). The 31 sub-centers and backup centers will also be finished in the second stage for form a virtual call center platform.

A loss of 140,000 job opportunities in America in 4 years

　　According to the research report published in this week by Datamonitor, a market research company, there will be a reduction of about 140,000 call-center related jobs in America in the coming 4 years due to the fact that many companies have shifted the jobs to Canada or other countries with low labor cost to reduce the cost of customer service. According to the report, by the year 2008 the quantity of call centers in America will be reduced by 6%, from 50600 to 47500. At the same time, there will immerging 800 call centers in Canada, generating about 93000 job opportunities.

　　Canada is not the only beneficiary from the location shifting of call centers. American companies are also preparing to open the telephone call services in India, Mexico and Philippine. What attracted these American companies is that there are a lot of English speakers and the labor cost is comparatively low.

　　According to another report as published by Datamonitor earlier this month, the same thing happened in England. At present, the call centers are shifting to Eastern Europe （including Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Romania）and some countries in North Africa.