BT International today announced the launch of UC Edge, a new managed service that gives multinational organisations’ CIOs a simpler, more flexible solution to manage their rapidly evolving AI-powered workplace collaboration strategies.

Many multinational organisations rely on a patchwork of collaboration solutions inherited through mergers and acquisitions or selected to meet different regional business needs, including sovereignty — be that data sovereignty, operational sovereignty or technical sovereignty. This mix of technologies can slow down transformation, increase costs and leave IT teams wrestling with complex, overlapping systems.

Now live, with initial customer deployments in highly regulated industries, UC Edge cuts through all of that. It lets organisations add or change AI-powered collaboration solutions and platforms quickly without restarting procurement or rebuilding compliant voice services.

An expansion of BT International’s Global Voice platform, it brings voice, collaboration and number management into one, vendor agnostic service. It works seamlessly across collaboration platforms, contact centre solutions and SIP services. IT teams can tailor the experience for each user, team or country while managing all their collaboration services through a single model.

Built as a single global communication layer, UC Edge’s intelligent voice routing automatically directs calls to the correct platform — no manual number alignment, no portal changes, no routing requests. IT teams can also move users between platforms with zero disruption and far less operational effort.

Denise Lund, IDC Research vice president worldwide UC&C and telecom, said: “As multinational organisations modernise their communications, they increasingly demand the flexibility to adopt best-of-breed and vendor-agnostic collaboration solutions that align with diverse business and regulatory needs. BT International’s UC Edge empowers enterprises to seamlessly integrate and manage multiple platforms, reducing complexity while enabling choice and agility.”

Matt Swinden, managing director of strategy & product at BT International, said: “Many multinationals are juggling legacy collaboration platforms, regional needs or simple user preference. With UC Edge, customers get one contract, one commercial model and one global product delivered seamlessly — giving them the freedom to use the platforms they want without the integration burden. So, when users ask: ‘Can we talk?’ the answer will always be ‘Yes!’”

ENDS

Notes to editors

BT International’s Global Voice platform
BT International’s Global Voice platform carries more than 16 billion calls a year across 70+ countries, integrating with leading collaboration solutions. As a SIP‑powered, cloud-first platform, it provides a strong foundation for future voice-and-AI innovations.

Key features of UC Edge

• One global product for all voice and collaboration services — reduce vendor sprawl and hidden costs with one partner, one contract and one global commercial model
• Enable sovereignty, compliance and regulatory alignment across every market without having to manage it market-by-market
• Strengthen resilience and business continuity with a globally consistent voice layer
• Modernise without lock in, supporting multi-vendor environments and protects for future change
• Bring new sites and users online in minutes, not months
• Learns and routes new numbers automatically through intelligent routing

Sovereignty

Data sovereignty ensures data is governed by the laws of the jurisdiction in which it was generated, with clarity over where it is stored and processed. Operational sovereignty relates to how services are run, including who operates them, from where, and under what governance and accreditation. Technical sovereignty is about long-term control and resilience, including the ability to operate, adapt and remain secure without undue dependency.

BT International, a global leader in international secure multi-cloud connectivity, and STACKIT, the cloud provider of Schwarz Digits, have today announced a partnership to help multinational customers operating in the EU comply with regulations, enhance their operational resilience and achieve the best applications performance.

Initially, BT will provide internet connectivity (peering) from its existing global network into STACKIT’s EU-based sovereign cloud. Later, this will be complemented with the option of private connectivity. In future, both private and internet connectivity will be delivered by BT’s new Global Fabric network-as-a-service (NaaS) platform. This will enable on-demand, flexible and resilient connectivity to STACKIT and other cloud services.

For the first time, STACKIT’s private sovereign cloud will be accessible to organisations operating outside the EU via a private sovereign connection rather than public internet links.

This breakthrough offers EU-based multinationals with global operations greater flexibility and control over where their data and applications are hosted and who can access them — ensuring compliance while unlocking greater business value.

Multinationals headquartered outside the EU but conducting business within the jurisdiction will also benefit. They can now build resilient, sovereign IT infrastructures to support their European operations, with compliant access to critical data and applications in line with regulations.

STACKIT’s high-performance data centres, located exclusively in Europe, operate under stringent security protocols and are fully GDPR-compliant. This ensures that customers within the EU retain complete control over their data. STACKIT also provides robust recovery capabilities, safeguarding customers against outages caused by external events such as natural disasters.

Global Fabric connectivity will offer customers using STACKIT on-demand access to a full suite of secure, stable, scalable and sovereign multi-cloud networking services. It includes pre-integrated connectivity to the world’s leading cloud platforms, SaaS providers, security services, and other digital solutions.

According to the latest McKinsey Economic Conditions Outlook, executives say geopolitical instability “overshadows all other perceived economic risks” with 72 per cent of respondents to its February 2026 survey citing it as one of the biggest global economic risks, up sharply from 51 percent in December 2025.

Global Fabric supports sovereignty and resilience by giving customers full control over how their workloads and data traverse the network. By accessing STACKIT via Global Fabric, customers will be able to ensure their data remains within EU borders — even as it moves between clouds and users.

Ghoutam Banerjee, director partner ecosystem & growth, STACKIT, said: “Through our partnership with BT, we are creating a groundbreaking connection for digital sovereignty. Together, we are enabling multinational corporations to access our sovereign STACKIT Cloud directly from locations outside the EU via a private sovereign connection. This integration not only strengthens our customers' operational resilience but also guarantees full compliance with European data protection standards, while ensuring that data remains securely within EU borders.”

Joris van Oers, chief commercial officer at BT International, said: “Sovereignty is top of mind for our customers — data sovereignty and both operational and technical sovereignty too. CIOs want resilient networks and IT systems to keep their businesses running, regardless of trade policy changes, global outages or natural disasters. We’re partnering with STACKIT to provide customers operating in Europe with trusted access to sovereign and resilient cloud services. It’s a powerful example of why BT is the global leader in secure multi-cloud connectivity.”

ENDS

Notes to Editors

Sovereignty

Data sovereignty ensures data is governed by the laws of the jurisdiction in which it was generated, with clarity over where it is stored and processed. Operational sovereignty relates to how services are run, including who operates them, from where, and under what governance and accreditation. Technical sovereignty is about long term control and resilience, including the ability to operate, adapt and remain secure without undue dependency.

Peering

Peering is a direct interconnection between service providers that enables faster, more reliable data exchange. Benefits include shorter routing paths, lower latency and reduced congestion resulting in improved application performance. Without sufficient peering, users may experience slower speeds and degraded performance.

Global Fabric and peering

Global Fabric, BT’s new network-as-a-service (NaaS) platform, will offer peering with a wide range of service and solution providers used daily by multinational customers. This includes sovereign cloud providers like STACKIT, hyperscalers such as AWS, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud and Oracle Cloud, as well as cloud security services, content delivery networks, business applications, SD-WAN providers and conferencing platforms.

With a physical footprint spanning approximately 140 global locations — aligned with cloud nodes, content providers, IXPs, and ISPs — Global Fabric ensures optimal performance for public cloud usage and SaaS consumption.

Designed for resilience, Global Fabric includes at least two points-of-presence (PoPs) per metro area, ensuring uninterrupted service even in the event of a PoP failure. As businesses grow, Global Fabric’s peering capabilities scale to meet evolving traffic demands, optimising routing paths for peak performance.

Shorter routing paths and lower latency enable seamless delivery of bandwidth-intensive applications such as video conferencing, cloud services, and data analytics. Direct peering also reduces reliance on costly upstream providers, offering competitive pricing for B2B customers.

Network-as-a-service (Naas)

The ISG Provider Lens® custom report, Shaping the future of NaaS in Europe, offers an analyst‑authored view of how NaaS is evolving across Europe. It outlines how organisations are modernising their networks through AI‑enabled, automated and consumption‑based models to support hybrid work, regulatory requirements — including sovereignty — and multi-cloud expansion.

The report can be downloaded from BT’s website at the following link: https://business.bt.com/insights/isg-shaping-future-naas-report/.

According to Dr. Kenn D Walters, ISG analyst and author of the report, “BT’s Global Fabric is a continuously evolving advanced NaaS solution with effective consumption options”.

About STACKIT

STACKIT is the cloud provider of Schwarz Digits. External partners and customers in Europe can rely on the cloud services that companies of Schwarz Group have been benefiting from for years for their digital transformation. On the way to becoming the first European hyperscaler, STACKIT offers digital sovereignty that goes far beyond the market standard and individual approaches to the implementation and operation of cloud solutions. STACKIT currently operates four data centers – one of which is in Austria – and is building a fifth in Lübbenau. Based in Neckarsulm, Germany, the team is paving the way for an independent Europe – digital, leading. As part of Schwarz Digits, STACKIT GmbH & Co. KG is part of the IT and digital division of Schwarz Group.

Sovereign Voice is the first product to be made available as part of the business’ new suite of sovereign specific products entering the market for UK businesses.

Powered by Cisco Calling technology to deliver highly secure, sovereign cloud calling, it will future-proof business phone lines and enable a range of modern calling features for businesses.  

Cloud calling lets businesses make and receive calls over a secure connection, giving them a modern, flexible alternative to traditional phone lines.

Unlike standard cloud voice services, Sovereign Voice ensures all call routing remains within UK borders.

The system is hosted entirely in secure UK data centres and is managed by UK-based, security-cleared staff, allowing customers to access elite cloud calling whilst meeting sovereignty needs.

The move builds on the launch of BT’s sovereign platform which will enable businesses to access the newly developed range of sovereign specific products or choose sovereign options from its core portfolio.

The platform will give business customers more choice about the level of control and security they need, as sovereignty becomes a growing priority.

Kerry Small, Chief Operating Officer at BT Business, said: “As sovereignty becomes an increasingly important topic for businesses across the globe it’s up to providers to step up and deliver the solutions customers need.

“This is about giving businesses more choice and control over their services to boost resilience and meet regulatory obligations, all whilst enabling them to access technology from world-leading providers like Cisco.

“Sovereign Voice is the first of our dedicated products to be made available to customers and marks a key milestone for our sovereign platform.”

Amey Parandekar, Vice President, Cisco Calling, Cisco commented: “As organisations face growing regulatory, security, and resilience expectations, trusted partnerships are more important than ever.

“Our long-standing collaboration with BT demonstrates a shared commitment to supporting UK businesses as they modernise their communications.

“By combining BT’s deep market expertise with Cisco’s secure calling technology, we aim to help customers navigate an increasingly complex landscape with confidence.”

It comes as our customers face unprecedented disruption across their markets driven by geopolitics, regulation and technology — with AI catalysing change faster than ever. We have designed BT International specifically to help our customers meet these challenges head on and anticipate future opportunities to thrive.

The way we do this centres on two highly scalable telco platforms designed for the age of multi-cloud and AI: Global Voice and Global Fabric, with security built in by design. We’ve channelled our investments into these cloud-centric global platforms and concentrated our expert teams where customers need them most.

From asset-light to platform-rich

We have evolved our ‘asset-light’ strategy for several years, designing our platforms to reflect the trends we see in customer traffic crossing our networks — from data flows to and between the big cloud providers to the emergence of hybrid cloud as a preferred model for many businesses. We see that AI has unpredictable impacts on our customers’ networks — from the lumpy, bulky training workloads of large language models (LLMs) powering GenAI to the low latency demands of conversational AI and augmented reality. These trends are set against the backdrop of a rapidly evolving cyber security threat landscape and a fast-moving regulatory environment.

Telecoms gets its voice back

Our Global Voice platform enables businesses, governments and the people they engage with to communicate with each other effortlessly. We’re already world leading in the global voice services market, managing over 16 billion calls to customer call centres in over 70 countries every year. We’ve migrated these services onto a new SIP-powered, cloud focussed platform enabling voice to be carried across data networks. SIP has been around for a while but the fact that Global Managed Voice is both SIP-powered and cloud-focused means that it’s perfectly poised to unlock the full potential of integrating voice with AI.  

Indeed, Gartner predicts that 30 per cent of Fortune 500 companies will offer customer service through only a single, AI-enabled channel by 2028. I believe our Global Voice platform is strongly positioned to enable this, backed by our experts who have delivered over 5,000 contact centres to over 2,000 customers around the world.

Wrapping the world in Global Fabric

Next, we have Global Fabric, our brand-new, AI-ready, cloud-centric network-as-a-service (NaaS) platform. This offers customers instant, secure and resilient connectivity to practically every app or digital service they want, including the world’s top cloud and software-as-a-service  (SaaS) providers. It launched to live customer traffic earlier this year and it is the platform that will help us achieve our goal to be the world’s number one provider of secure multi-cloud connectivity.

Global Fabric could have hardly arrived at a better time. We were one of the first telcos off the starting blocks with a truly greenfield international platform to eliminate the drag that the previous generation of networks had on customer innovation. With traditional networks, setting up or making changes to connectivity for a new or existing app, including AI, could take days or weeks. With Global Fabric, it happens in an instant.

Now think of the increasingly complex international regulatory environment. Technology and data have become geopolitical pawns. That means customers must double down on sovereignty, ensuring the right data stays within the right jurisdiction while enabling them to unlock its value to the business. With Global Fabric, customers can choose both the cloud destinations their data goes to and the route it takes along the way. This means regulated data never leaves the designated national borders and helps customers stay compliant.

Sharing a platform for success

Looking to the future of our industry, we believe international networks will gravitate towards fewer, larger, telco platforms able to manage the demand generated by increased cloud and AI services. We invite other service providers to work with BT International, as we build out our ecosystem of partners, including our recently announced partnership with Google Cloud, and scale fast so we can, as an industry, offer the best value to customers across the globe. 

We’re at a pivotal moment as an industry. It is an opportunity to move away from fragmented legacy international networks to a platform designed with the reality of AI, cyber and cloud at its core, reflecting customers’ expectations of speed, security, sustainability, sovereignty and naturally the skills to support future growth and prosperity.