AccessLine Communications announced today that it is launching a new voice-over-IP service geared at small businesses.

The new SmartVoice Service will be launched across North America on both a wholesale and direct basis. Similar to other business VoIP offerings, AccessLine is touting both the cost savings and the potential for new applications.

"We're finding the business customers always say savings, but it's migrating to being about productivity and quality," said Kent Hellebust, chief marketing officer for AccessLine. "For most of the people who are being sold VoIP, their point of reference is legacy TDM. In order to hold on to market share, TDM providers are willing to skinny down their margins."

AccessLine does have a resale agreement with Savvis that is bringing it into larger enterprises. The company also is increasingly emphasizing its ownership of the source code for most of its applications, which means it can respond faster to new application requests because it's relying on any third parties.

"Business customers are interested in a more evolutionary offering," Hellebust said. "Most customers who have more than one office may be in a situation where for their new office they don't even want to mess around with PBXes or key systems. Also, If they have teleworkers, we're able to offer a la carte functions."

Initially the company will only support Cisco's SIP phone as well as two other models that it hasn't named yet.