Level 3 Communications has launched a partner program in Europe, allowing resellers to offer Voice over IP (define) services to small and medium businesses.
The offering debuts in the United Kingdom today and will expand to other countries throughout 2005, the Bloomfield, Colo., backbone network operator said.
In Europe, as in the United States, the program gives resellers, such as ISPs and telecom carriers, tools to evaluate their clients' voice, Internet and data needs.
Level 3 handles billing, marketing, set-up, provisioning and network operations center support. Program participants can either sell services under their own name or choose to leverage the Level 3 brand.
The company is no stranger to the European market. It provides backbone services to nine out of 10 of the largest European telecom carriers.
And earlier this year, it expanded its suite of data networking services there, including its IP virtual private network offering for enterprise customers.
The company also enhanced its wide-area Ethernet, ATM and Frame Relay data networking for European customers by adding new lower speed data services. In all, the company's fiber-optic network stretches 23,000 miles worldwide.
BusinessEurope, a trade association representing large and small businesses, said: "Two years after adoption, the implementation of the SBA can be regarded overall as work in progress. However, good results coexist with worrying lags."
The organisation's top priorities are reducing red tape, the European Private Company Statute, a better strategy for international trade and access to credit.
"The Small Business Act is as good as its implementation. Only if it can be applied in practice can we have an SME-friendly Europe. We need to operate at all levels of governance – be it EU, national or local – to make it work and deliver a more integrated internal market to SMEs. All new legislation must therefore take into account these principles," said Jonathan Zuck, president of the Association for Competitive Technology (ACT).
