Deepening its penetration into the rural operator market, softswitch/gateway vendor GENBAND said it has added to its customer lineup Eastex Telephone Coop., one of the largest rural carriers in Texas. Founded in 1950, Eastex serves over 25,000 subscribers across East Texas, with 21 fully digital exchanges and a 4000-mile network.
The company will deploy the GENBAND C15 Compact Softswitch to migrate from its legacy network to an all-IP system, in order to offer new VoIP and data services to its customers.
The North American market-share leader in IP softswitches, according to Infonetics, GENBAND has grown over the last few years by targeting smaller service providers, particularly in rural areas. The company won Nortel’s carrier VoIP division at auction earlier this year, and in June 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 has begun rolling out new products that help competitive service providers quickly migrate to fully IP networks. Those products include the downtime-avoiding Automated Cutover capability. A software element that integrates with the softswitch, the AC feature is targeted at smaller operators that can’t afford planned network outages during the transition to next-generation systems.
Having grown, mostly through acquisitions, from $2 million in sales and 80 employees to $800 million-plus in revenue and 2,200 employees, GENBAND is eyeing an IPO sometime next year, CEO Charles Vogt told VON/xchange in June.
