In The News 2011

That move to IP services could happen faster as more people adopt a "bring-your-own-smartphone" strategy because employers will be looking to regain control over the key data -- contacts, customer info and sales reports -- that is increasingly housed on employee phones and controlled by the employees, suggests Kelsyn Rooks, director of solutions marketing at Metaswitch Networks . Creating fixed-mobile convergence solutions for businesses will enable cable to play in this market, even without a wireless services, he said.

Glimmer of hope - It's not all doom and gloom, however. London-based Metaswitch Networks told us it is taking on over 50 graduates this year in a range of positions and subsidised internship schemes, and that it will "always make room for talent".

Brian Dolby speaks to Martin Taylor, CTO at Metaswitch, about the new Perimeta Session Border Controller and what that means for operator in the Asia Pacific region.

What Sets Metaswitch Apart - In an uplifting keynote session, company CEO Kevin DeNuccio made the pitch about the fact that consumers will pay for advanced services and, moreover, that Metaswitch is the carrier partner to help provide them.

It remains to be seen if bigger equipment vendors like Ericsson or Huawei tackle the DSC, or if it remains in the province of IP specialists. And not every smaller IP-focused vendor is jumping into Diameter yet either. For instance, Metaswitch, with deep roots in SIP including a recent entry into the SBC market, acknowledges that while there’s a lot of buzz around Diameter, it isn’t planning a DSC product, at least in part due to questions about the ultimate size of the market, said Patrick Fitzgerald, Metaswitch's vice president of SIP Infrastructure.

Metaswitch is gearing up to do more than just passing around voice between devices. Voice may be the current anchor, but Metaswitch is promoting standards-based RSC/RCS-e compliant solutions to handle instant messaging and presence, video chat, and file exchange in real time. The company has put CommPortal, Colibria, and Thrutu all under its “4th Generation Communications” category and said it intends to expand investment into client-side software.

Metaswitch Networks -- As this year's repeat finalist for this category, we still like Metaswitch. The company has continued to position itself into key technology and application growth markets. For example, the company is looking to rich communications for mobile operators with its in-house developed app called Thrutu and the acquisition of messaging and presence specialist Colibria AS . It has also developed its own session border controller called Perimeta.

I felt the impact of the financial crisis back in 2009, well before the start of the current austerity measures, as my previous employer Ericsson ended 90 years of telephone-network development in Coventry with their withdrawal of R&D from the UK, shedding 700 highly-skilled jobs. Closing a facility of that size and complexity inevitably took time, and it wasn't until September 2010 that I finally left.

AT&T is a long-standing customer with Metaswitch, with a relationship dating back over a decade since AT&T's IP unified messaging platform is built around a core of Metaswitch products. Laurier "Chicky" Leclair, product development engineer for AT&T, says the current iteration of its solution supports two million subscribers per platform, supporting voice mail, email, and fax to the same in-box.

When Metaswitch Networks says the company aims to become a "platform," you should take notice. The question isn't "what product will Metaswitch introduce next?" but "what does it mean if Metaswitch can become a platform?" The phrase "global and mobile," in conjunction with platform, should suggest some answers. Translate that as "everywhere." So what would it mean if applications and services are available "everywhere?"   It means Metaswitch has to enable apps that work on mobile and fixed networks, that move sessions between mobile and fixed domains, seamlessly.

If Metaswitch Networks executives succeed with their current vision of how the company will change over the next five to 10 years, Metaswitch will have become an advanced call control platform that allows developers to create new apps rapidly. It won't be a supplier of wired network or wireless network equipment (though it likely will do some of that) so much as a software company whose business is call control functions usable by any network services provider whose business includes messaging, voice, multimedia, web applications and other elements of a communicaton session.

Optimum Lightpath, the commercial services arm of Cablevision, is now offering a new hosted voice service for medium- and large-size businesses that comes with a host of new features.  While Optimum Lightpath first rolled out a hosted voice product in early 2009, the new Optimum Lightpath Hosted Voice service offering has a wider range of features for businesses to choose from and is enabled by Metaswitch's MetaSphere multimedia application server.

Cablevision Systems' Optimum Lightpath business division launched an enhanced hosted voice service, which provides a range of new call-processing, mobility and collaboration features.

The editors of Light Reading today are proud to present the finalists for the industry's leading awards program, the Leading Lights. Metaswitch Networks is a finalist in the Company of the Year (Private) category, which is awarded to the privately held firm that stands out among its competitors, innovates constantly, makes investors proud and makes employees happy.

Next week I am headed to the Metaswitch Forum 2011 event and this will be the third time in a row speaking with carriers and the communications industry in general. Last year I had a speaking opportunity and have one this year as well. What I like about the event is the wide range of carriers and partners I get to meet with while there. Here is a partial list: ADTRAN, NETXUSA, Aastra, Panasonic, Polycom, Audiocodes, Calix, Cisco, Cordell, Dasan Networks, Edgewater Networks and ONEACCESS.

In a telephonic briefing for IndiaTechOnline, Simon Dredge, Technical Marketing Director, Metaswitch, explained that leading mobile operators like Bharti Airtel were accelerating their LTE plans for deployment in 2012, stepping up the migration from circuit to packet voice even while they rolled out rich multimedia services.

New Perimeta session border controller builds on vendor’s deep roots in SBCs, but represents its first full-on platform play. Can it nip at Acme’s heels? When it comes to session border controllers, there’s Acme Packet – and everyone else. Metaswitch, best known for its VoIP and application server platforms, nonetheless has a deep history in SBCs, supplying an SBC software stack to large NEMs and reselling the crucial network element from a variety of partners as part of IP deployments.

In what CTO Martin Taylor describes as "our most significant new in-house product development for years," next-generation network systems supplier Metaswitch Networks has launched its own session border controller (SBC) product called Perimeta, a move that pitches it in head-to-head with current partner and SBC market leader Acme Packet Inc.

Metaswitch Networks introduced its Perimeta session border controller designed for independent scaling of signaling and media functions. The platform represents a new class of SBC because currently deployed systems are not optimized to handle the highly dynamic session environment brought on by massive number of mobile devices and services such as presence and IM.

Edgewater Networks will participate as a sponsor at the Metaswitch Forum 2011 being held at the Bellagio Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, NV, October 3-6, 2011

As the changing service mix imposes ever-greater signaling requirements, service providers need a wider range of products and solutions to meet all their functional and quality requirements for session border control. In these circumstances, SBC architecture and scalability become critical differentiators – and the benefits of a distributed and highly-scalable architecture for session border control are so overwhelming that no service provider can afford to overlook them.

Leila Makki reports on the growth of Cloud-based mobile services and applications, and meets three companies who are doing pioneering work in this new sector. Metaswitch, SwiftKey and Simplexo also have to counter the perception of lack of security in using Cloud services. If the right precautions are taken, there is no inherent problem with Cloud-based mobile computing, and services such as these will gain wider appeal and could soon become the norm. (Registration required to view video).

Switching services provider Metaswitch Networks' board of directors has approved the appointment of Thomas L Cronan III as chief financial officer of the company. Switching services provider Metaswitch Networks' board of directors has approved the appointment of Thomas L Cronan III as chief financial officer of the company.

Cronan, who has been CFO of the Santa Clara company since May 2009, is taking the CFO role at Metaswitch Networks.

"We are extremely pleased to have Tom join us at this important stage of our expansion," said Kevin DeNuccio, CEO at Metaswitch. "I am confident that his background and demonstrated success in financial leadership, along with his experience in legal counsel and financial analyst relations, adds to Metaswitch's leadership team, and will contribute significantly to the company's continued success."

The move from TDM to IP is well advanced at wholesale operators but a long transitional period will involve the two technologies co-existing for at least a decade.

While Thrutu sounds like the name of an Egyptian god, it might actually be the first true mobile convergence application. Binding traditional voice with a parallel data application, the Metaswitch Networks application available on Android and Apple iOS (well, IPhone, for this version) does something relatively unique these days.

 Simon Dredge, Technical Director at Metaswitch Networks, speaks to Martyn Warwick from TelecomTV, at CommunicAsia 2011.

Since March 3, when Palo Alto, CA-based Thrutu introduced its Android app for sharing photos, contacts, and map locations during a voice call, more than 250,000 Android phone owners have downloaded the app. That’s a lot for an Android app, so Thrutu vice president Liz Rice seemed pretty happy when I spoke with her yesterday. But she added that many of these Android users had a surprising request: they wanted Thrutu to build an iPhone version.

Telecom vendors have had limited success helping their operator partners deliver telecom/mobile apps. But Metaswitch seems to be on a bit of a roll with its Thrutu mobile app, launching a new iPhone version today, joining an already-released Android app (CP: Metaswitch continues to push right Thrutu ‘buttons’). Besides the obvious coup of reaching millions of new iPhone users, the move sets up the app – which enables real-time, in-call content sharing between users – to span the two popular platforms.

Following the acquisition of Colibria in April of this year, Metaswitch Networks is demonstrating its continued commitment to investing and building its position in mobility with the release of an RCS-e 1.1 compliant Instant Messaging Server.

Simon Dredge, Director Technical Marketing at Metaswitch, delivers a top down summary of Metaswitch strategy and recent wins in region at CommunicAsia in Singapore, 2011.

Taiwanese mobile, Internet and fixed line services provider Chungwha Telecom is deploying the Metaswitch Service Broker as a single platform to deliver services across both its legacy and IMS networks.

Metaswitch Networks, a global supplier of next generation telecom infrastructure and applications, today announced new customer wins in Australia and the Philippines, expanding its presence in the Asia Pacific region.

Metaswitch Networks, a global supplier of next generation telecom infrastructure and applications, today announced new customer wins in Australia and the Philippines, expanding its presence in the Asia Pacific region.

Taiwan's Chunghwa Telecom is deploying the Metaswitch Service Broker to deliver services across both its legacy and IMS networks. These services will be delivered to subscribers on any network at the same time, without compromising IMS capabilities.

“It’s time our phone calls caught up with the rest of our digital lives.” That’s a line from Thrutu’s promo video. I was already sold on the service before hearing the line — I had read through all the material first — but that really brought it all together for me. Ever since I started using a smartphone, phone calls became more of an annoyance. There are so many ways to communicate; why would I choose the method that takes up the greatest portion of my attention? With Thrutu, which I found on Android Police, there might actually be a good reason.

"We are thrilled that Bill and Jeff, who have navigated many such shifts in their highly successful careers, have agreed to join the board and share their experience, guidance and advice," said DeNuccio.