Cisco Reveals New Stats Touting Growth of Webex Calling Cloud PSTN Service

The number of active monthly users of Cisco’s Webex Calling cloud PSTN service has reached 4 million. Cisco released the stat on Tuesday, marking the first time the networking giant has disclosed such figures.

Cisco shared the figure in an update on its Webex Calling business. Webex Calling is now part of Webex Suite. Released in June, Webex Suite is a service that includes cloud calling, chat, meetings, poling and webinars.

The Webex cloud PSTN usage is double the 2 million Zoom Phone users revealed by Zoom last week. In its Q2 earnings release, Zoom said it now has 2 million Zoom Phone seats.

Among other figures shared by Cisco, the Webex Calling business can now scale to 39 million cloud calling users worldwide. Overall, Cisco said it has hosted a record 8 billion calls in a month. And the number of partners now offering Webex calling has grown to more than 1,000, according to Cisco.

Moving Customers to the Cloud

Cisco’s Lorrissa Horton

“While folks have thought of us only as on-prem, we’ve been hard at work at building our cloud, and also moving our own customers from on-prem into the cloud,” Lorrissa Horton, vice president and general manager of Cisco’s Webex Calling and Online business told Channel Futures. “We’ve been pretty aggressive about that move.”

Cisco is crediting the growth to cloud connected PSTN capability added to the Webex Control Hub. This new integration with help from service provider IntelePeer allows for automated ordering and provisioning of new lines.

New updates to Webex Calling lets Cisco partners can now offer customers more customized PSTN offerings, according to company officials. Cisco said that its calling plans are now available to business customers in the U.K. In total, Cisco’s Cloud Connected PSTN with domestic calling is now available in 65 countries.

Enhancements to the Cisco Webex Control Hub now enable the acquisition and provisioning of PSTN services, but it can use the partner’s PSTN, according to Horton.

“We have many large customers who have existing contracts with their service providers,” Horton said. “But they don’t want to have to do this swivel chair between going from one admin portal to the other to manage their PSTN. That’s all brought together into our Control Hub.”