Offering voice service using pre-WiMax equipment got a bit easier this summer with an auspicious partnership between SOMA Networks, the broadband wireless access equipment vendor, and Broadsoft, the softswitch vendor.

Fresh from a $50 million injection of new funds, SOMA announced in late June that it was the first BWA gear vendor to earn certification of interoperability with Broadsoft's platform, giving SOMA access to Broadsoft's catalog of hundreds of IP voice features, including not only standard fare like three-way calling and call waiting but more sophisticated stuff like Web interfaces for feature customization. The pairing also gives service providers a simpler, more accessible way to offer a powerful package of pre-WiMax VoIP services.

If there's a reason SOMA beat other broadband wireless access equipment vendors to certification, Broadsoft said, it might be because SOMA focused intently on VoIP — with a system that distinguishes voice from other packet traffic — while other vendors considered it “just another application.”

“They seem to have a higher level of sophistication in understanding VoIP,” said Scott Wharton, Broadsoft's vice president of marketing.

For example, SOMA's system, which has been shipping commercially for more than a year, compresses voice traffic and integrates VoIP processing, with signaling between the modem and the base station guaranteeing throughput and quality, assuring that packets in a voice call aren't delayed.

And while lots of other BWA equipment vendors use two boxes for pre-WiMax VoIP (a wireless uplink and a media gateway), SOMA integrates both functions into one box, which includes not only a wireless uplink but also an Ethernet port and RJ11 jacks for phones and faxes. The combination of devices actually uses less bandwidth — about 5 kb/s to 10 kb/s, according to Tom Flak, SOMA's vice president of product marketing.

“That means we can put twice as many subscribers in the same amount of capacity, which makes the business case stronger,” he said.

That same consolidation of functions also erases headaches over inter-box configuration and interoperability and makes installation cheaper and simpler. And that simplicity comes in very handy with a lot of the customers targeted with this gear, Wharton said, many of whom end up calling tech support to ask what an Ethernet port is. It also helps wireless Internet service providers who are eager to add voice to their offerings but don't have much — or any — experience with it.

The two companies expect their partnership, and similar ones sure to follow, to accelerate deployment of pre-WiMax VoIP, a movement that's already building steam. In late June, Broadsoft announced three service providers using its wares to roll out pre-WiMax VoIP service: Azulstar in New Mexico, NextWeb in California and Nevada and WisperTEL in Colorado. WISPs are finding that voice is a must for their businesses, Wharton said, and that data service alone may not justify the cost of deploying BWA equipment. Users in developing nations in particular might not see the economic case for BWA unless it includes voice, he said.

Flak expects the SOMA/Broadsoft combo to gain traction first in Southeast Asia, where the economy is growing fast but the infrastructure is shoddy. But the business case should catch on in North America, especially in areas DSL can't reach and among competitive service providers that don't have what he calls “the luxury of wires.” Those operators may not have luxury, but if SOMA and Broadsoft have anything to say about it, their lives are about to get a bit easier.