Saddleback Communications Chooses MetaSwitch to Kick Up Advanced Services

Ruidoso, New Mexico: ANMTA Fall Conference, September 30, 2008. MetaSwitch, the leader in reliable, high-quality voice communications platforms and services, announced today that Saddleback Communications has purchased and deployed the MetaSwitch softswitch and MetaSphere application suite to deliver next-generation telephony services and advanced features to residents and businesses located on the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community.

Formed more than ten years ago, Saddleback Communications is a federally regulated incumbent local carrier (ILEC) currently serving more than 3,500 business and residential customers within the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community, a Native American community that spans more than 53,000 acres. "The Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community has seen tremendous commercial growth, with large numbers of enterprises relocating to the area," explained Bill Bryant, general manager for Saddleback Communications. "With MetaSwitch as our core switching platform, Saddleback is able to quickly provision services like primary rate interface (PRI) for large businesses and integrated solutions for small-to-medium sized businesses such as Hosted VoIP, unified messaging and conferencing services." The MetaSwitch platform also enables Saddleback to provide enhanced voice and messaging services to approximately 3,000 households on the Community.

The MetaSwitch softswitch deployed at Saddleback Communications' central office currently handles more than 50,000 calls per day. Saddleback plans to roll out a second central office in 2009 with an additional MetaSwitch at the core, enabling Saddleback to offer its customers mission-critical services out of redundant central offices. "We weren't particularly pleased with our previous softswitch vendor, so we went to great lengths to ensure our next provider would be a trusted, reliable solutions partner that would enable us to continue our transition from a small residential phone provider to a world-class telephone company," said Bryant. "We ultimately decided on MetaSwitch because of the company's reputation, commitment to research and development, and dedication to its customers' long term objectives."

"MetaSwitch remains committed to investing in the development of quality products and technologies that appeal to diverse carriers dealing with very different market conditions," said Jeff Lattomus, area vice president of sales, MetaSwitch. "With our products in place, Saddleback Communications can now keep pace with the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Community's rapid commercial growth, and help quickly deliver next-generation services to its residential community."

About MetaSwitch

MetaSwitch is an industry-leading vendor of switching and applications solutions for both packet and circuit-switched networks. Its MetaSphere applications suite enables a broad set of hosted IP communications services, while its core session control and media/signaling gateway products support a full range of Class 4/5 softswitch capabilities. Customers include many of the world's leading operators of wireline, wireless and cable networks, with deployments that scale to millions of subscribers. For more information, please visit www.metaswitch.com.

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