Categories: Cloud Calling

Cloud Calling in 2022: Unstoppable Webex Calling momentum

As 2022 comes to a close, the Webex Calling team would like to take a moment to wish all of our customers a very happy holiday season. Thanks to you and your steadfast support, we’ve been able to accomplish more than ever. This blog is a recap of key launches that we’ve achieved together this year. Cloud Calling

Delivering cloud calling to more people around the world

Today, Webex Calling is connecting more people than ever before. Over 7 million users (and counting) around the world use Webex Calling to make 8+ billion calls per month, doubling our installed base since last year 🎉.

In 2022, we expanded our geographic coverage to over 120 countries (added 35 new markets), including some of the world’s largest economies like China and India. Today, Webex Calling is available in countries that generate over 90% of the world’s gross domestic product. To achieve the high standards our customers expect from us, we launched Media PoPs (Points of Presence) in Singapore and South Korea to deliver enhanced quality, security, and reliability of calls for customers in these regions.

Productivity and agility fueled by cloud innovation

The cloud promises immediate and continuous innovation, a key advantage over on-premises systems that require costly hardware and software updates. In 2022, we delivered on this promise by “accelerating the pace of innovation” to provide our customers with even more powerful tools to adapt to today’s quickly evolving world of hybrid work.

  • Webex Go is our industry-first mobility solution that enables employees to make business calls from the native dialer on their personal mobile phone, and ensure that calls are secure, compliant, and private. We launched Webex Go early this year in the United States 🇺🇸 and expanded our coverage to the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 in November. We’ve also made the Webex Go experience more powerful – you can now move Webex Go calls from your native dialer to the Webex App and elevate these calls to a video call or meeting. Learn more here.
  • At Enterprise Connect 2022, Webex Audio Intelligence outperformed our cloud competitors in a noise removal Cage Match. We’ve also made this technology available through another industry first: Noise removal for external callers. This feature enables a Webex Calling users to remove noise from an external caller’s side of the call – even if that caller is not a Webex Calling user.
  • Group Call Management is another example of how we listened to our customers and delivered more value. This suite of features delivers a complete call center experience out of the box, and with no additional cost. Read more here.
  • Cisco has sold more than 100 million phones to date, and this year we added another device to our award-winning lineup. Cisco Video Phone 8875 brings a complete Calling and Meetings experience to your desktop with a 7-inch touch screen and HD camera. The Video Phone 8875 is built for today’s hybrid world in which businesses are shifting to shared office environments. With our new hot desking capabilities, hybrid workers can easily make the Video Phone 8875 their own by simply scanning a QR code.

Cloud calling for any workstyle

Millions of Webex Calling users work in different locations around the world, on different devices, and in different productivity environments. This year, we focused on making Webex Calling more flexible to adapt to the workstyles of our users.

  • Many of our customers have invested in Microsoft productivity tools, but also need the Webex Calling enterprise-grade experience. Our Webex Calling for Microsoft Teams integration brings Webex Calling directly to the Microsoft Teams interface. We enhanced this integration in 2022 and unveiled a completely refreshed user experience that will be coming soon to users worldwide.
  • Google Chrome is the world’s most popular browser and adoption of Chrome OS in enterprises is growing rapidly. We’ve brought the powerful Webex Calling experience to these users with our Webex Calling for Chrome extension. Available for no additional fee in the Chrome Web Store, this extension looks and feels just like a desktop application, all through the browser you ❤️.
  • Power calling users like receptionists, call group managers, sales and support staff keep the gears of our organizations running smoothly. We’ve made it even easier for these workers to be productive in today’s hybrid world with the multi call window a new interface take makes it easy to manage multiple lines, shared lines, or call groups.
  • Earlier this month we released business texting, a feature that many of our customers have been eagerly anticipating. Business texting gives users a quick and easy way to send person-to-person text messages from within the Webex App, and is included at no additional charge with Cisco Calling Plans in the United States and Canada.

Paving a seamless path to the cloud webex Calling

Moving to the cloud is easier than even with Webex Calling. We’ve invested in features and a rich partner ecosystem that provides our customers with flexible migration options and peace of mind.

  • PSTN connectivity is critical for any business moving to the cloud, and we continue to expand our PSTN options to provide our customers with more flexibility. This year we expanded the reach of Cisco Calling Plans to 19 countries around the world, providing more customers with a simple, fully integrated offering directly from Cisco.
  • Cloud Connect for Webex Calling is our new name for Cloud Connected PSTN (CCP). We’ve enriched this program with not just a new name, but with a host of new Certified Calling Providers as well as our new Enablement Program that offers an accelerated route to market for Calling Providers. We are thrilled for Ribbon Communications to be our launch partner.
  • Our Local Gateway PSTN option offers customers the flexibility to use existing provider in over 120 countries.
  • This month, we added support for Session Border Controllers (SBC) from AudioCodes, Ribbon, and Oracle to make the move to the cloud effortless.
  • With Dedicated Instance our customers can migrate to the cloud at their own pace and leverage existing investments in Cisco IP phones, survivability solutions, workflows, and integrations. This year, we’ve made Dedicated Instance easier to manage with features like auto-provisioning of Webex App devices, more flexible with support for Cloud Connect for Webex Calling, and available to more people with the launch of two new data centers in Australia.
  • Our partner ecosystem continues to grow. We’ve formed new partnerships that provide our customers with flexibility as they make the move to the cloud. Explore Webex App Hub to explore hundreds of rich partner integrations.

Powerful management and easy administration Webex Calling

We’ve added a ton of new features this year, and we’ve also made Webex Calling easier to manage. We know that call quality and reliability are essential, and this year we’ve launched new analytics, troubleshooting, and survivability tools to enhance the enterprise-grade Webex Calling experience. Our industry recognized Control Hub is a single dashboard to manage it all.

  • Earlier this year we launched a new Webex Calling analytics dashboard that displays call quality across a number of dimensions. Our dynamic filters make it easy for admins to drill down into this data to quickly identify and resolve call quality issues.
  • If a user does experience call quality issues, our new troubleshooting tools provide a detailed view of each call so admins can immediately get to the root of problems. Admins can also set alerts for VIPs and important sites, so they’re notified immediately if call quality issues occur.
  • We know that for many of our customers, calling is mission critical. In October, we launched the beta program for Site Survivability for Webex Calling. With Site Survivability, Webex Calling customers are protected against unexpected network outages that disrupt access to the Webex Cloud.

It’s been exciting to see each of these features ship out the door and receive positive reception in the market. I am honored by the accolades that we’ve received from industry analysts like Gartner and Aragon Research. But as I look back at 2022, the most rewarding and satisfying moments come from the calling features we’ve launched to empower workers of all types, and make the promises of hybrid work a reality. I’d like to close this year by giving my sincere thanks to our customers and partners. We have delivered a lot this year but can’t wait to show all the greatness that we have planned for the new year 👊.

If you are ready to supercharge your business with a modern cloud calling solution; one that is more secure and reliable, with a global reach, I invite you to visit our Cloud Calling website to explore all of the powerful features and capabilities. You can also reach out to our Sales team to discuss your specific needs and request feature demos.

With full of gratitude from the Webex Calling team, have a joyful holiday season ☃️.

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Published by
Manu Parhar

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