ALAMEDA, CA--(Marketwire - March 11, 2008) - For established carriers, transforming existing
networks can seem like a daunting task -- financially, technically and
operationally. Three seasoned service providers -- Ritter Communications,
Champaign Telephone Company and the Ontario & Trumansburg Telephone
Companies -- were all faced with this challenge. Each is a successful
service provider, with a combined 310 years of providing telecommunications
services to their subscribers. All three looked to MetaSwitch to help them
build a foundation for the 21st Century.
"MetaSwitch clearly understands how to help established carriers
successfully transform their networks to offer all services -- from
traditional voice to next-generation IP telephony applications -- so they
can address a wide range of customers and maximize return on investment,"
said Bob Harvey, area vice president of MetaSwitch. "MetaSwitch remains
committed to delivering leading-edge technology and providing comprehensive
system integration support to ensure our customers can quickly and
cost-effectively deliver services to their subscribers."
Ritter Communications is a 101-year-old independent local exchange carrier
(ILEC) in northeastern and north central Arkansas. For the past four years,
the company has also been operating as a competitive local exchange carrier
(CLEC) to the nearly 60,000-resident city of Jonesboro, Ark., as well as
owning and operating a number of cable TV franchises across northern and
northeastern Arkansas that it acquired in 2005. The company is deploying
the MetaSwitch class 4/5 softswitch to provide traditional voice, VoIP and
voice-over-cable. The goal is to integrate with a broad mix of access
technologies across Ritter's ILEC, CLEC and cable TV operations to deliver
an efficient, functional and reliable network. In addition to converting
all of its switches to the MetaSwitch platform, Ritter Communications is
utilizing the MetaSphere service delivery platform to deploy advanced
applications that include Unified Messaging, CommPortal web interface,
CommAssistant toolbar, Auto-Attendant and Privacy Defender.
According to Paul Waits, president of Ritter Communications, the decision
to use MetaSwitch was due to the company's ability to deploy new services
in a variety of network infrastructures -- traditional telephone company
networks, CLEC business networks and packet-based cable networks.
"MetaSwitch interfaces with all of our 'old' stuff, helping to extend the
life of our legacy gear while providing competitive enhanced services
across the entire footprint," he explained.
The Champaign Telephone Company (CT Communications) was founded in 1898 to
serve the small, rural communities of Western Ohio. The deregulation of
services in the late 1990s allowed the Urbana-based service provider to
become the first telephone company in its area to offer high-speed Internet
services. A self-proclaimed "early adopter of technology," the company
continued its push into delivering next-generation services when it
deployed the MetaSwitch softswitch platform in 2007. Originally, CT
Communications used the switching system to offer traditional phone
services, but the company recently began to deliver IP-based telephony
services and now provides a "triple-play" bundle of broadband, wireless and
digital TV.
In addition, CT Communications is using the MetaSphere service delivery
platform (SDP) and application suite to provide hosted PBX services to
small-to-medium businesses in the Urbana area. The IP-PBX service is part
of the company's new CLEC strategy, running services like digital voicemail
and Auto-Attendant over broadband.
"MetaSwitch makes the transition to becoming a hosted IP services provider
far easier than using traditional PBX models," said John Ridder, director
of network planning, CT Communications. "The hosted service means no
big capital investment for us, and since the MetaSphere system is so
user-friendly, we don't need to employ specific programmers and the web
management features make it easy for our customers to manage their phone
services."
The Ontario & Trumansburg Telephone Companies (OTTC) are the largest
independently owned ILECs in New York State, serving their respective areas
for 100 years. The companies, under the subsidiary Finger Lakes
Technologies Group, Inc., (FLTG), chose MetaSwitch as the switching
platform for their new CLEC operation. The CLEC territory will comprise a
200-mile fiber network extending from Ithaca to Rochester and towards the
Western part of New York State. FLTG is deploying the MetaSwitch VP3510
switch to deliver traditional voice, long distance, unified messaging and
conference bridging.
"In order to remain competitive for another hundred years, we needed to
expand and offer services outside of our traditional ILEC operation," said
Paul Griswold, president, OTTC and FLTG. "MetaSwitch is a trusted partner
as we build out this completely new system to offer advanced services to a
new customer base."
About MetaSwitch
MetaSwitch is an industry-leading vendor of switching and applications
solutions for both packet and circuit-switched networks. Its MetaSphere
service delivery platform and
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.
Data Connection and MetaSwitch are trademarks of Data Connection Limited
and Data Connection Corporation. Brands and products referenced herein are
the trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders.
Copyright © 2008 Data Connection Limited.
Contact Information: Contact:
Carol Daniels
MetaSwitch
+1 (510) 589-5074
chd@metaswitch.com
Erin Grohs
Connect2 Communications for MetaSwitch
+1 (919) 554-3532 x5
egrohs@connect2comm.com