Enterprises still running voice over legacy switched telephony have a new migration path. Google has extended its collaboration with BICS, the Brussels-based international carrier owned by Proximus Global, to refer customers to BICS for full Public Switched Telephone Network replacement in more than 40 countries.
The mechanic is a "bring your own carrier" arrangement. Google's communications software (Google Workspace voice, contact-centre tools and Google Cloud services) sits on top of BICS' global telephony layer. A customer that chooses Google Voice, for example, has calls carried over BICS' network, using BICS numbers and voice services behind the scenes. The user-facing surface is Google; the wires underneath are BICS.
The arrangement is pitched at multinationals trying to retire patchwork local PSTN contracts, contact centres integrating voice into cloud customer-engagement stacks, and enterprises moving core collaboration into Google's cloud. Signing a single carrier that can stand in for the PSTN in more than forty countries simplifies procurement and avoids the operational tax of managing local telecoms providers one jurisdiction at a time.
Partnering with Google to enhance cloud communications is a seismic moment for BICS and the culmination of years of hard work building industry-leading global networks. This agreement reinforces our role in enabling enterprise-grade voice connectivity across the world. It also shows the strategic importance of hyperscaler partnerships for seamless, cloud-based communication solutions. We are delighted to be one of Google's chosen few carriers trusted to bring our expertise to enterprise customers at a global scale.
BICS says the new deal puts it alongside eight of the largest global carriers serving hyperscaler voice workloads. The company cites more than 450 direct mobile-operator relationships, over 150 million connected devices and billions of voice and data interactions a month as the scale behind the partnership; last year it was independently recognised as a Champion Roaming Vendor by Kaleido Intelligence.
Both sides will host dedicated landing pages for the joint offering on their websites, and Google will provide a referral pathway for customers moving onto BICS' network. The broader signal is that the next wave of enterprise voice modernisation is less about IP-PBX replacement and more about rewiring international telephony through hyperscaler relationships, with the carrier layer increasingly invisible to the end user.
