Level 3 Communications’ global portfolio of Session Initiated Protocol (SIP) Trunking solutions and infrastructure will now support the Microsoft (News - Alert) Lync network environment.

This environment, notes Level 3 Communications, allows hosted voice providers to offer Unified Communications (News - Alert) (UC) applications to their customers.

A popular unified communications hosting solution for telecom and hosting providers, Microsoft Lync Server 2010 Multitenant Pack for Partner Hosting enables service providers to add an economical unified communications service offering to their existing services.

This solution can be customized to address the unique needs of the customers, and to differentiate offerings from other competitors in the market.

"This offering enables service providers to leverage Level 3's highly scalable network and experience with unified communications, particularly with Lync, to grow their end-user business," said Anthony Christie, chief marketing officer at Level 3. "We're making it easier for our service provider customers to provide a streamlined unified communications experience to their customer base, and Level 3's expertise will help them implement Lync projects on time and within budget."

Level 3 is the Microsoft project's SIP Trunking and infrastructure provider, bringing a number of capabilities to the hosted UC ecosystem.

The company notes that Microsoft Lync Reference Architecture Project comprises a group of hardware, software and communications service providers that have developed an extensively scaled implementation of Microsoft Lync Server 2010.

"Using its extensive experience enabling SIP-based hosted offerings, Level 3 is building a strong foundation for our Lync offering and helping Microsoft Lync Server 2010 enable a new generation of hosted unified communications users,” said Warren Barkley, general manager for Lync at Microsoft.

Level 3 Communications was in news earlier this year when the Metro Ethernet Forum (News - Alert) (MEF), an industry alliance, honored the company with the "Service Provider of the Year" award for its Ethernet services in the Caribbean and Latin America (CALA).