MetaSwitch today announced two new customers, and the first commercial validation of its expanded strategy for softswitch deployment.

Two wholesale consortia – the Montana Advanced Information Network (MAIN) and Iris Networks of Tennessee – are deploying the MetaSwitch core softswitch as part of next-generation initiatives that will add Class 4 and Class 5 carrier-based services to their existing transport options.

“We announced the Class 4 capability at Globalcomm,” said Andy Randall, vice president of marketing for MetaSwitch. “This is the first announcement of deployment of that capability. These are consortia of telcos that have built out regional fiber optic networks. Now they are moving much more into providing value-added services on top of the network, both for their members who are LECs but for other carriers as well. It’s increasing their ambition in terms of what they can do.”

MAIN and Iris represent the second and third major consortia that MetaSwitch has landed as customers, following Iowa Network Services.
MAIN is expanding its network, using distributed media gateways which will be controlled by a centralized softswitch call agent, in a much more streamlined switching architecture, Operations Manager Corey Jensen said in a prepared statement.

“We conducted a detailed evaluation of all the leading softswitch solutions available for distributed IP voice switching,” he said. “While several vendors could demonstrate their experience in pure trunking scenarios, MetaSwitch stood out for the breadth of proven applications, beyond core voice switching, that they could support today.”

Iris Networks is using the MetaSwitch core switch to handle long-distance Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) trunking over an OC-48 dense wavelength division multiplexed (DWDM) network, with plans to offer higher level voice services to its carrier customers.

“A key differentiator for MetaSwitch was the ability to deliver a broad range of Class 4 routing features from the same platform as a rich set of Class 5 capabilities,” said Peter De Bono, director of engineering for Iris Networks, in a prepared statement. “MetaSwitch uniquely demonstrated their ability to migrate from our initial deployment to future IP-based enhanced subscriber services, without requiring a major system upgrade.”

For many independent LECs, being part of a larger consortium enables them to reduce interconnection costs by sharing the transport and signaling links, Randall said. As a larger entity, the consortia get more competitive pricing and have more connection options.

“What some of these consortia are now looking at, since they’ve worked out how to move from transport to Class 4, is how to move to real value-added services, such as IMS applications like unified communications services,” he said. There is also the opportunity to deploy a VoIP switch so that telco members can resell that service to their subscribers, which makes it easier for smaller LECs to get into the VoIP business.

“We have seen a lot of independent telcos get into VoIP and deploy their own softswitches,” he said. “There is a portion of companies who are not comfortable doing it today – their local consortium can do it first and help them get into it more easily with less risk. They will be sharing that capital investment across a bunch of different telcos.”

It is MetaSwitch’s intent to continue helping smaller LECs extend their reach into more higher value services, Randall added.

“They look to MetaSwitch to do more than our traditional Class 5 replacement kinds of things,” he said.