IN THIS ISSUE
Happy New Year eNews readers! I hope your holiday season was grand and that you
are ready to dive into 2008.
In this edition of Metaswitch eNews Bernie Arnason of Pivot Media discusses the
topic of convergence in telecom. The article is quite an interesting read and is
very relevant to the state of telecommunications today. You will also be be introduced
to the "Voice of Metaswitch", our own Marie Mayer, who does all of the voice recordings
for the various Metaswitch applications. Lastly, we were excited to announce recently
our deployment by Cable and Wireless on the Indian Ocean island of Diego Garcia.
More on that story below.
Please read on and enjoy!
Cory Boller, editor Metaswitch eNews
Bernie Arnason, Pivot Media LLC
The issue of convergence has been talked about for many years now. Conceptually,
it makes great sense. Combining the utility and convenience of wireless, wireline,
and web into a common communications experience holds tremendous promise. Wireless
carriers look to convergence to build additional value and incremental revenue opportunities.
Wireline carriers hope for those opportunities as well, but also see convergence
as a tool to help maintain relevancy for traditional wireline communications. Immense
development resources have been devoted to convergence, accompanied by the hype
that comes with such attention. Many may argue that the rate of actual convergence
deployments have lagged the hype. But that may be beginning to change.
Bernie Arnason reports on Convergence.
If you dial into the Metaswitch to make phone calls, then you are familiar with
the voice on the end of the line when you retrieve your voicemail, dial a number
that is out of service or change your phone settings. You may have even run into
that same voice on the Metaswitch conference server or if you use Auto Attendant
or Privacy Defender. Have you ever stopped and wondered about who it is on the line,
always there to assist you in your time of need? The voice of Metaswitch is our
own Marie Mayer, a true pioneer who has been with the company since we set up shop
in the Alameda office. In this edition of eNews, Editor Cory Boller sat down with
Marie to discuss the magic of the voice, company growth and what it takes to be
successful in telecommunications today.
Question: What is your experience in the telecom industry and what was your
path to Metaswitch?
I started in the telecom industry as a long distance operator for Illinois Bell.
When divestiture happened, I became an AT&T employee. I stayed with AT&T
until 1998 when the company was offering managers a nice package to leave. I decided
it was time for new ventures.
Question: Have you done voice recordings in the past?
I began doing regional recordings for AT&T on a whim. I had no experience with
voice recordings at that point but was hand picked simply because they liked my
voice!
Question: Do you sing?
I love karaoke! But I'm not sure we can incorporate that into the Metaswitch. Wait,
what about Music on Hold?
Learn more about Marie Mayer.
World's Leading Global Communications Company Completes First Deployment In Indian
Ocean Island Of Diego Garcia, Plans Further Roll-out For Other Territories
Metaswitch recently announced that Cable & Wireless International (CWI) has
completed its first deployment using the Metaswitch switching platform. The initial
deployment for CWI was in Diego Garcia, a territory in the Indian Ocean that hosts
one of the United States military's key overseas bases. The softswitch, which was
installed and deployed in two weeks, replaces an older switch that was considered
to be at end of its useful life.
"We were extremely pleased with the success of this initial deployment, in
no small part due to the commitment and professionalism of the Metaswitch support
team," said Frank Mount, Chief Technology Officer of CWI. "We are committed
to moving towards a full IMS architecture for next generation voice services and
with their experience migrating legacy voice switches to carrier-class IP-based
platforms, Metaswitch has a valuable role to play in that strategy."
The Diego Garcia deployment of a Metaswitch VP2510 Integrated Softswitch includes
traditional telephony, as well as new Voice over IP services enabled by the Metaswitch
infrastructure. Serving approximately 2,000 residents, the new system supports a
combination of E1 and T1 traffic, and routes off-island traffic through satellite
connections.
CWI Announcement
By Dan Marcus, Marketing Director
Today's service providers are facing well-known challenges including ARPU erosion
as voice becomes a commodity and aggressive competitors begin offering a broad range
of services. In response, it is important to deliver new high-revenue services.
Unfortunately, there is a major obstacle barring the services providers' path: their
traditional network integration and marketing processes mean that new service development
takes a very long time and costs a huge amount.
The Service Delivery Platform (SDP) has been developed as a solution to this problem.
An SDP allows the service provider to define, develop and deploy new services far
faster than they have been able to in the past. This is achieved in two ways:
- An SDP includes tools that allow very easy definition and development of new services.
- It also provides a single environment within which network integration occurs once,
so new services do not require major new IT integration.
If you are considering deploying a SDP it is important to understand the benefits
an SDP has and its relationship to the legacy technologies it is designed to augment
or replace. To read more about the background of SDPs, and get a basic introduction
to the architecture and characteristics of SDPs that are specifically designed for
telephony applications read Metaswitch's new whitepaper
Service Delivery Platforms - "New Services Made Easy."
Metaswitch customers: mark your calendars for the next Metaswitch Forum,
April 22nd - April 24th, 2008 in New Orleans!
More details coming soon!