INSIGHT Graeme Geddes - Zoom Phone & Rooms
“We’re not stopping here. Our goal is to continue to add and expand into different countries and territories.”
Disrupting with simplicity
Comms Business caught up with Graeme Geddes, head of Zoom Phone & Rooms, to fi nd out more about the
company’s evolving call routing and management options
Zoom Phone, the cloud
phone service from Zoom
Video Communications,
recently expanded the
footprint of its PTSN service. It
also launched a new, simpli ed
plan for companies with o ces
across the globe. Zoom Phone
is now available in 40 countries.
New additions are in the EU
(14), Latin America (9), and
Asia-Paci c (3).
Graeme Geddes, head of Zoom
Phone & Rooms, explained
its aim is to “help customers
consolidate their cloud video
conferencing and telephony
needs into a single solution.”
at means replacing legacy
telephony systems with Zoom
Phone. e company can
o er this, Geddes explained,
because “Zoom has a global
backbone of 18 di erent data
centres, network connectivity,
and interconnects”. is newer
o ering leverages all of that
previous work, as Zoom Phone
uses the same architecture as the
video conferencing platform.
Starting with video software
and adding voice has advantages.
Geddes explained that “it’s a lot
easier to go from video down
to voice from an architecture
perspective. It’s not as easy to do
that the other way round.”
The vision
Zoom Phone has a mission to
untangle the world of global
telephony. Geddes said, “We’re
really pushing the boundaries
of how we blend these worlds
together in a really seamless way.
If I’m on a phone call, I can push
one button and escalate into a
video meeting. Or if I receive
an inbound call and I want to
transfer someone into a meeting,
rather than saying ‘Please hang
up, here’s some details to join
the meeting’ – why can’t I just
Graeme Geddes, head of Zoom Phone & Rooms
conference them in? We’re really
looking to blend these two
worlds together.”
is might be the vision,
but Zoom is realistic about
business readiness to migrate
entirely to the cloud. In the
near-term, some end-users will
require hardware integrations.
Geddes said, “We work with
folks like Yealink and Poly to
support people that still need
desk devices – particularly in
verticals like retail, hospitality,
and nancial services. Not
everyone is ready to move to
softphone only, so we also have
our hardware partners.”
Zoom has recently addressed
some security and privacy
concerns. Geddes said, “Zoom
takes security extremely
seriously and we’ve been doing
a lot of investments in this area.
Zoom Phone is not a separate
product, it’s part of the same
architecture – so the bene ts
of all of the investments we’ve
made extend into our phone
service as well. For example, we
did an encryption update to the
platform back in May where
we moved our cypher, from a
technical perspective, from ECB
to GCM. at extended across
the entire platform. e phone
service, for any of our Zoom
clients, is leveraging GCM 256.”
ese security upgrades have
trickled into Zoom’s hardware
partnerships. Geddes explained
that Zoom has worked with desk
phone providers to move from
128-bit encryption to 256-bit
encryption, something that he
says had not been done before.
When asked whether he
anticipates most Zoom Phone
signups will come from existing
Zoom users, or those replacing
traditional phone lines, Geddes
took a balanced view. He said.
“I would say we originally
anticipated our big base of video
customers might see Zoom
Phone as a natural extension
of their existing platform. But
more recently we’re seeing a
tremendous amount of growth
from customers that are brand
new to the Zoom platform and
are coming in with a full-scale
replacement of their existing
services – both voice and video
at the same time.”
Disrupting the industry
Zoom Phone has also launched a
new option for customers when
procuring telephony services.
is is particularly signi cant
for companies with operations in
numerous territories around the
globe, where there were usually
two options: on-premise with
complex hardware and local
carrier contracts in each market,
or with other cloud providers
that o ered complicated plans or
were tied to speci c geographies.
Geddes explained that the
company set out to “disrupt with
simplicity”. e new global select
plan allows businesses to buy a
single plan to service 43 di erent
countries and territories. is is
costed at a single price per user,
with unlimited domestic calling,
and a local phone number. is
simple plan with a single price
across markets, Geddes said, is
“really disruptive in the market”.
Zoom Phone has also
launched an international calling
add-on that lets users make
unlimited international calls to
over 18 di erent countries for a
single price per user.
When asked what future
expansions might look like,
Geddes gave a measured answer.
e company would like local
dial-tones in every region, but
this is based on costs. “ ere
are other vendors out there that
have global calling options, but
they are at a price point where
no one ever buys it. Zoom has
taken a di erent philosophy
where our 18-country unlimited
international calling add-on is
extremely fairly priced. It’s an
attractive option for customers
that make a lot of international
calls. e service is starting
with 18 but the hope is that,
over time, we would include
additional countries within it.
“We’re not stopping here. Our
goal is to continue to add and
expand into di erent countries
and territories. As we add
additional locations, the intent
is to fold them within that big
global plan.”
40 | Comms Business Magazine | October 2020 www.commsbusiness.co.uk
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