IP communications solutions provider MetaSwitch (News - Alert) and Occam Networks today announced they now have more than 100 joint service provider deployments in North America delivering voice, data and video services to a wide range of customers.

 

As a pure IP-over-Ethernet multi-service access play, the Occam platform is compatible with MetaSwitch's core session control, call feature server and media gateway products, working with different signaling protocols to ensure that the interaction is seamless. The combined solution enables carriers to take advantage of the migration to IP and deliver voice, data and video services to customers.

 

The Alameda, California-based MetaSwitch, an industry-leading vendor of switching and applications solutions for both packet and circuit-switched networks, has recently increased its footprint throughout North American with a  jump in total shipments of Class 5 switching capacity and has now passed the 20 million subscriber mark.

 

For its part, Occam Networks provides broadband access that offers multiservice access platform (MSAP) solutions based on pure packet technologies. The teaming of the services seems to be a natural fit given the extent of both companies’ services and the markets they operate in.

 

Now, in tandem the platform is expected to help service providers to deliver advanced IP voice and data services to any customer or any type of network more efficiently, while enabling carriers to take advantage of the migration to IP and deliver a host of innovative voice, data and video services to customers.

 

"Carriers are looking for vendors that share their values, which include delivering quality products that work," said Mike Ward, senior vice president of sales at MetaSwitch. "The experience gathered from our multitude of shared deployments puts MetaSwitch and Occam in a unique position to continue to offer best-of-breed solutions that enable carriers to offer new revenue-generating services even while decreasing OpEx costs."

 

One such carrier is Emery Telcom, a Utah company that has been providing telephony services – today its base reaches 15,000 telephone residential and business subscribers – for nearly 60 years.

The MetaSwitch and Occam solution now enables Emery to deliver a triple-play bundle of voice, video and data over the same converged network. While this may seem like a pretty simple solution, helping reduce network costs can be significant for companies like Emery’s bottom line.

"Today we're able to offer sophisticated new services with improved operational efficiency," said Brock Johansen, chief executive officer at Emery Telcom. "We've been able to increase revenue, as well as offer even our smallest communities the advanced services normally only available to large cities."

 

For Hiawatha Communications, a holding company that wholly-owns four independent local exchange carriers (ILECs) that offers traditional telephony and Internet services to approximately 12,000 residents and businesses in nine communities throughout Michigan's Upper Peninsula, having the ability to affordable replace costly legacy gear will help strengthen resources and make networks more cost-effective.

 

"Working with MetaSwitch and Occam Networks, we can evolve our network to deliver new services like triple-play bundles of voice, video and data," said William Tidd, vice president and chief technical officer, Hiawatha Communications. "Additionally, replacing our costly legacy gear will help us strengthen resources and make our networks more cost-effective."

 

In many underserved rural markets, it can be difficult to build new exchanges from the ground up. And that may be nowhere more evident than in Alaska where weather conditions and scattered populations are all factors in deploying technologies.

 

Alaska Telephone Company (ATC), the largest local exchange carrier in the Alaska Power & Telephone Company family of companies, has for 50 years sought to bring increased services to out underserved and un-served areas in the state by building new exchanges from the ground up.

In fact, the company has such a dispersed client base – from the Arctic Circle to the Wrangell Mountains – physically reaching customers can be an arduous task.

"Our territories consist of a lot of difficult geographic terrain, so we're often sending crews out in floatplanes, snow machines and all-terrain vehicles to help with network interruptions and service requests," said Tom Ervin, ATC. "Using the next-gen equipment and services from Occam and MetaSwitch, we can easily and reliably offer more advanced services to our remote locations."