TORONTO -- TELUS today demonstrated its innovative IP-One telephony service, the first carrier-grade hosted and managed Internet Protocol (IP) telephony service in Canada. TELUS is now commercially launching its IP-One service to business customers in Ontario and Quebec.

TELUS IP-One has already been running in production for more than a year, handling more than one million calls. Its advanced technology has met and surpassed standard industry requirements for quality, reliability, security and performance.

TELUS IP-One utilizes TELUS' Next Generation Network (NGN) rather than the telephone network to route calls and data, providing business customers with a full suite of IP-based advanced application services and the ability to integrate voice-mail, e-mail, data and images via a highly intuitive online Web portal. TELUS IP-One is made possible because of TELUS' investment over the past two years in a robust, secure and IP-based Next Generation Network (NGN), which is capable of offering integrated solutions comprising of voice, data and video application.

TELUS customers from a wide variety of industries are already reaping the benefits of this compelling, carrier-class hosted IP telephony solution, including customers such as Borland Canada Inc., Richter, Usher & Vineberg, Berlex Canada Inc. and Belron Canada Inc.

"TELUS' commitment to advancing technology while reducing costs and increasing productivity for customers is consistent with our own," said Christopher Corey, president and general manager of Borland Canada Inc. "Borland is already seeing real benefits from TELUS' IP-One service, both in our internal and customer-facing communications. The new service is helping us better meet our customers needs by seamlessly providing one point of contact for them to reach us from anywhere in the country," Corey added.

TELUS IP-One allows businesses to easily manage features such as call forwarding and contact lists, access their voice-mail as they would e-mail by clicking on a specific message, or conduct ad-hoc multi-party conference calls by selecting contact names from a directory and adding them to a "Meet me" window on the TELUS IP-One portal. The service also allows business customers the flexibility to shift employees and workstations without having to reconfigure network and telephony services, making it extremely time and cost effective.

"TELUS IP-One is the first of many Next Generation services that are the result of more than two years of focused research and testing, and represents a major step forward in IP telephony," said Joe Natale, EVP and president of client solutions at TELUS. "We're providing our clients with the opportunity now to move toward converging their networks and reaping tangible benefits of the technology, such as increased productivity, ease of use and lower overall cost," added Natale.

Telus Corp.