MetaSwitch eNews - November 2007

Vision Net, headquartered in Great Falls, Montana, is a consortium of nine Montana and Wyoming telephone companies built to better and more effectively serve their collective needs. Vision Net sought to claim access revenues from the incumbent IXC on behalf of its geographically dispersed owners through an investment in an access tandem switch with MetaSwitch. As a result of rapid migration of traffic onto MetaSwitch, Vision Net was able to fuel investment in a next generation IP Network and deliver positive ROI in a mere 22 months versus its original 31 month projection. It is also well poised for future opportunities including IP Peering.

Background
Vision Net was founded in 1995 with the mission to deliver innovative and reliable business and technology solutions that, in cooperation with its shareholder-owners, enable its customers to access all information vital to the future economic and educational development of its region. To execute this it has built and maintains a nearly 3000 mile fiber network and is a central resource for vendor negotiations and network expertise for its owners.

Using a next generation softswitch, Vision Net sought to claim interexchange and termination revenues that went to Qwest, the IXC in the territory. Hoping to keep their voice traffic "on net" for as long as possible, and better control and manage costs from phantom traffic, Vision Net acted on behalf of its owners to evaluate investment in its own Class 4 softswitch that was reliable, scalable, and compatible with its owners' networks over its large geography. In conjunction with this, Vision Net sought to upgrade its core network to IP from ATM for better manageability and greater bandwidth and security options.

The MetaSwitch Solution and its Impact
Vision Net deployed MetaSwitch MG3510s in Billings, Missoula, Great Falls, Montana and Casper, Wyoming. Media Gateways were deployed to provide TDM Access from all nine owners to connect to Vision Net's SONET network via both IP and TDM. At its Billings site, a pair of redundant Call Agents and EMS Server manages the remote media gateways and provides redundancy and emergency backup. The owners can access the Vision Net Media Gateway via TDM, SIP-trunking or SIP-T.

Vision Net also chose Cisco to enable its IP network. Powered by its 7609 series of routers, the network now delivers the bandwidth, QoS, security and service availability to better provide new revenue generating services such as video conferencing, remote data storage, and the processing of bank transactions.

With this, Vision Net began to immediately realize new meet-point billing revenues, and has accelerated convergence of its voice and legacy ATM traffic onto its new IP network. Financially, it expects to considerably exceed its original ROI projection.

With MetaSwitch there are additional opportunities to support IPTV, delivery of Class 5 features, and IP Peering. According to Corey Jensen, Operations Manager for Vision Net, "IP Peering for voice will explode and with MetaSwitch, we're set-up to do this with no painful migration."

Hard dollars are important, but it has also come with outstanding service and support. "We get every bit of what I'd expect from a support perspective," proclaims Jensen. "MetaSwitch is a breath of fresh air versus the typical vendor. I am always impressed with the MetaSwitch support model and my dedicated customer support engineer."

METASWITCH eNEWS - NOVEMBER 2007

Customer Profile - Vision Net

By Chris Carabello, Marketing Director, MetaSwitch