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Sydney, Australia-based Symbio (News - Alert) Networks provides managed and wholesale Voice over IP (VoIP) services based on the Stratus Telecommunications ENTICE (Emerging Networks Telecommunications Infrastructure Control Environment) Session Border Controller (E-SC) and the ENTICE Class 5 server.

The company offers voice calls plus business and consumer-class features to customers in the Asia Pacific Rim area.

Symbio manages services from its operations center in Sydney, where six ENTICE E-SC platforms aggregate incoming VoIP traffic and form the company’s core voice network, company officials explain: “Each ENTICE platform supports a different aspect of the company’s operation -- for example, wholesale or managed services. The Sydney center connects to numerous points of presence and collocation centers throughout Australia, New Zealand, and Singapore.”

But as use and popularity of VoIP services began to grow, Symbio discovered that the managed services market was becoming increasingly saturated with customers who already had signed up for services. “Today most providers use VoIP, so it became increasingly difficult to find new entrants into the market interested in our offering,” said Alastair Slattery, Symbio’s manager of wholesale and business development.

To generate more revenue and attract new customers, the company focused more intently on providing wholesale origination and termination services. The initiative appears to be working.

Company officials say Symbio’s current call volume has jumped to 60 million minutes per month in Australia and New Zealand, up one third from its 40 million call volume 18 months ago. The increase has been the result of the deliberate decision to build wholesale market share, Slattery said.

Symbio chose the ENTICE product for three key reasons, Symbio officials say:

Cost-effective and Feature Richness

The ENTICE E-SC platform provides more features and functionality for the cost than competitive offerings. The platform provides security, multimedia service delivery, interoperability, and interworking, while ensuring regulatory compliance. With support for numerous protocols, including SIP, H.323, H.248, SIGTRAN, and SS7, it interconnects calls and services across all wireline, cable, and wireless networks, enabling the company to serve any size and kind of provider.

Flexibility.

All ENTICE offerings feature a flexible architecture that allows providers to customize services to fit customer requirements and offer new features more rapidly and cost effectively than using competing solutions. Open interfaces allow Symbio to integrate their ENTICE platform with all network elements and customer infrastructure, and rapidly implement new services.

High Scalability.

All ENTICE products can be offered in several configurations, from a single server solution that manages up to 4,000 sessions to multiple server tools that can be deployed in numerous countries and offer global and local route plans, Class 5 features, centralized Operation, Administration, Maintenance, and Provisioning (OAM&P), and billing.