National broadband company Internode has boosted the appeal of its NodePhone telephony service by adding quick, easy and affordable on-demand access to extra telephone channels.

NodePhone is a Voice-over-broadband service that provides low-cost calls with the quality of a traditional telephone service. What makes NodePhone unique is that all NodePhone calls travel on Internode’s first tier, fully redundant, private national network. This guarantees consistent call quality, unlike the “best effort” services available from Internet-dependent Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) providers.

A standard NodePhone service comes with two voice channels. Using the online NodePhone Toolbox, Internode’s MultiLine service now allows NodePhone customers to order additional voice channels for just $10 per channel per month. There is also a $20 change request charge.

Internode’s product manager for NodePhone, Jim Kellett, said the launch of NodePhone MultiLine was a key step in the evolution of NodePhone into a fully featured, corporate-grade IP telephony service. “It gives business customers access to additional IP telephony when they need it,” he said.

“For example, a rapidly growing business that requires 10 more voice channels for their phone system can now place their order online, without any human intervention or queue bottlenecks, and have the extra channels up and running within a few minutes. If they only need this extra capacity for a limited period, they can just as easily relinquish any surplus channels when the demand is over.

“As a comparison, a traditional ISDN phone service can take up to four weeks to provision, can cost more than $800 in upgrade fees and generally incurs nearly three times the cost per channel. Extra channels for ISDN primary rate services must also be ordered in groups of 10.

“The flexibility and affordability of MultiLine, along with Internode’s cheaper call charges, makes the business decision to choose NodePhone even easier.”

Launched in 2005, NodePhone last year signed up its 10,000th customer. Internode has consistently enhanced the Internet Protocol-based telephony service, ensuring it is completely bullet-proof at each stage before introducing enhancements.

The MultiLine facility delivers extra call capacity by providing additional channels when NodePhone is connected to an IP-based PBX system. Customers can order any number of extra channels rather than just multiples of 10 as occurs with traditional ISDN primary rate services.

Mr. Kellett said Internode intended to continue enhancing its NodePhone service throughout 2008. “Our goal is make NodePhone the IP telephony service of choice for Australian businesses,” he said.