Enabling small and medium-sized service providers to take a flip-the-switch approach to migrating legacy networks to all-IP systems, GENBAND has equipped its C15 compact softswitches with a new downtime-avoiding Automated Cutover capability. A software element that integrates with the softswitch, the AC feature is targeted at smaller operators who can’t afford planned network outages during the transition to next-generation systems.
The software element allows calls and sessions to continue to route to legacy TDM connections or to the IP softswitch, as appropriate, and lets operators migrate multiple offices on a site-by-site or line-by-line basis.
The North American market-share leader in IP softswitches, according to Infonetics, GENBAND has grown in the last two years by targeting smaller service providers, particularly in rural areas. The company announced the Automated Cutover addition at the annual conference of OPASTCO, the trade association for rural providers.
One such provider is Hamilton County Communications in Dahlgren, Illinois, which this week said it will deploy the C15 softswitch as part of its fiber-to-the-home service in Southern Illinois.
Operators like Hamilton County “want cost-effective transition stories like a software upgrade to an SBC," Sanjay Bhatia, GENBAND’s director of product marketing, told VON/xchange last month. The acquisition of bankrupt carrier Nortel Networks’ carrier VoIP division “makes it easier for us to make those transitions smoothly."
GENBAND, which won Nortel’s carrier VoIP division at auction earlier this year, last month unveiled its plan for the combined GENBAND-Nortel product line. The company will invest $150 million in R&D to create new product lines, it said, and plans to roll out new products (such as the Automated Cutover software) over the next few months. For now, the company’s portfolio consists of the A-series applications suite, the C-series with call control, softswitches and media gateway controllers, the G-series media gateway line, the S-series security session border controller line, and an underlying element management system, called GenView.
“We have a focus on simplifying the migration from TDM to IMS and all-IP," said Bhatia.
