Looking to help carriers bring voice-over-IP service to their most remote locations and perhaps extend its own market as well, Veraz Networks introduced a compact media gateway this week for distributed low-density sites.

Veraz’ I-Gate 4000 EDGE media gateway, which will be generally available in the first quarter of 2006, is a redundant platform that addresses the relatively high cost of traditional TDM backhaul traffic. It is intended to get carriers started on their migration to IP-based transport services prior to the need to invest in softswitch technology.

“Rather than having a TDM backhaul network, this enables carriers to keep the voice network as far out on the edge as they want,” said Edward Camarena, senior director of product marketing for Veraz.

San Jose, Calif.-based Veraz also sells full-scale media gateways and softswitches for which the new gateway can serve as a stepping stone.

The I-Gate 4000 EDGE can be used for diverse compression, switching and enhanced service applications including VoIP trunking, softswitch-based toll and tandem switching, PBX access and mobile network compression and switching. It can support up to 500 concurrent calls but is still cost-efficient, serving less than 100 calls.

The gateway provides advantages in conserving space and power. It also helps carriers implement compressed backhaul and local switching applications with the ability to transport compressed voice, fax and SS7 and ISDN-PRI signaling information over IP networks.

“You don’t need a separate signaling gateway because you can backhaul the signaling to a centralized media gateway when you have softswitch control,” Camarena said.

The products compression techniques can support a 1000% capacity increase. “The advantage to our gateway is the ability to deliver 10:1 or 12:1 compression while maintaining toll-quality voice at remote or distributed sites where bandwidth is at a premium,” Camarena said.