industry news

VoIP Provider Cirilium Plans to Go Public Appia Earns Cisco Powered Network Designation

Fresh off its sale to private equity company Royal Palm Capital Group Inc. earlier this year, Cirilium Inc. is poised to become a public entity through a reverse merger set for mid-May.

“During the tech boom, reverse mergers were looked upon unfavorably. Now that’s changed,” says Bill Pearce, CEO of Royal Palm Capital Group. “We executed this strategy with Bidville, and we plan to do it with Cirilium.”

Details of the transaction have not been released. Cirilium and Bidville are two of five related companies in the Royal Palm portfolio. The others include e-commerce firms 321 Play and Buy Sell Connect as well as IP PBX maker Stitel. Stitel and Cirilium Inc. are wholly owned subsidiaries of Cirilium Holdings Inc., which was formed by Royal Palm.

In October 2001, Heritage Communications Corp. (HCC) acquired Cirilium’s intellectual property, inventory and other assets from the joint venture of Inter-Tel Inc. and Hypercom Corp. HCC sold the assets to Royal Palm in February 2004.

The new Cirilium organization will continue to develop, market and support its current VoIP solutions, including access points, call control applications, call management solutions and Web voice technologies.

In addition, Heritage added its real-time billing and back-office platform, switch configuration application and Web-based customer management solutions to Ciriliums product line.

“Not only do we have the same end-to-end VoIP product line that we’ve always had, but now our value- add is our expertise in integrating TDM and VoIP technologies/networks,” says Susan Cable, a spokesperson for the company.

She explains that with the installed base of switches providers don’t want to (and can’t afford to) replace their existing network even though they know a VoIP network will save them money and provide more applications.

“So, we’ve now developed the core software capability to seamlessly integrate the huge TDM market and the growing IP communications market, regardless of the protocol used. That positions us nicely in the current competitive landscape.”

Appia Earns Cisco Powered Network Designation

Appia Communications Inc. has been designated a Cisco Powered Network (CPN) by Cisco Systems Inc. Appia says it earned the CPN designation by demonstrating a consistently high level of network quality and service, and by basing its services end-toend on Cisco equipment. Appia joins more than 350 service providers worldwide in the Cisco Powered Network program.

“We are delighted to receive this recognition,” says Victor von Schlegell, Appia’s president. “We use Cisco because we believe that it enables us to assure our customers of end-to-end quality and reliability. We also value Cisco’s ongoing commitment to research and development of new products and services that will give us a continuing competitive edge.”

Appia also will engage in joint marketing and technology sharing with Cisco.

Probe Group Says Fixed Line Market Moving Toward VoP

Research firm Probe Group LLC predicts nearly 27 percent of the global fixed line market will be using voice over packet technology (VoP) by the end of 2008. Analysts recently released a new report, “Line-Side VoIP- What is Driving Demand?,” forecasting the market for VoP access gateway revenue and analyzing the evolution of VoP services.

“As local carriers reallocate their budgets from traditional to next-generation equipment, VoP technology will make its way into the loop side of the central office,” says Christine Hartman, Probe Group’s research director for packet voice markets. “Ultimately, VoP will approach the Class 5 central office from both the line and trunk sides. Carriers will then have to consider replacing Class 5 switches with softswitches.”

Probe Group says premise-based access gateways dominate in the near term and will continue to be important as voice-over-broadband deployments accelerate. The report says network- based access gateways, eventually, will assume greater importance as incumbents seek more economical ways of serving their residual circuit-switched customers.

Nortel Receives PacketCable Media Gateway Controller Qualification Status

CableLabs, a non-profit research and development consortium representing the cable industry, has awarded PacketCable Media Gateway Controller (MGC) qualification to Nortel Networks’ Succession Communication Server 2000. Last July, the same server received PacketCable CMS qualification in Certification Wave 26. Nortel says this new milestone completes PacketCable 1.0 qualification for Nortel Networks’ softswitch.

PacketCable is a CableLabs-led initiative that defines a common platform to deliver advanced, realtime communication services such as VoIP. Nortel Networks Succession CS 2000 was successfully tested in CableLabs Certification Wave 28 for compliance against the latest PacketCable Trunking Gateway Control Protocol and security specifications, which define the core functional requirements of PacketCable 1.0 Media Gateway Controllers.

IPCC Forms 2004-2005 Working Groups

In response to service provider members and industry needs, the International Packet Communications Consortium (IPCC) has announced its new working group initiatives for 2004-2005. The working group topics were mapped out by members of the IPCC’s Service Provider and Executive Boards to address the most challenging issues in the industry.

• The Service Provider Packet Interconnection Group: captures interconnection rules and procedures for public VoIP networks. This group will focus on the challenges of interconnecting VoIP islands nationally and globally.
• The Service Provider Application and Services Interoperability Group: acts as liaison for service providers and other industry forums to accelerate the interoperability and conformance testing of multivendor VoIP and packet solutions.
• The Session Border Controllers Group: works with vendors and service providers to define security and interconnectivity requirements for VoIP networks.
• The Government and Regulatory Issues/- Opinions Group: works with government organizations such as, the FCC, the FBI, the European Union and the ANSI T1S1 to represent IPCC members’ needs. The group also provides education and opinions on behalf of IPCC members to governmental bodies such as the FCC and FBI/CALEA.
• The Enterprise and Customer Premise Group: works with access providers and vendors to define and establish interconnectivity between the access layer and the core packet transport layers.
• The Industry Resources and Education for VoIP and Packet Solutions Initiative: ensures communications between industry organizations and individual companies to foster a better and faster diffusion of services and technology.

Phonom Markets VoIP to Consumers

Phonom LLC is selling its residential VoIP product to the mid-Atlantic region, marketing the service directly to consumers. Phonom uses solutions from the Lucent Technologies Accelerate VoIP portfolio and IP network services from Cavalier Telephone. Phonom users plug the VoIP device into a broadband connection anywhere in the United States. The Lucent solutions include the VoIP switching platforms, Web-enabled voice mail and a Web portal for managing phone calls, e-mails, voice mail, calendars, address books and more from any computer or PDA.

Brad Evans, Phonom founder and CEO, says his company is the first broadband provider to integrate a fiberoptic-based IP network with a traditional telephone system.

Viper Selling Wi-Fi VoIP Phone

Viper Networks Inc. says it is releasing its Wi-Fi VoIP phones for retail sale throughout the United States. . “Viper Networks has completely reconstituted the back-end and billing systems to sustain what is expected to be a tenfold growth in activity over the next three months to four months from our new products,” says Ron Weaver, CEO of Viper Networks. “The Wi-Fi telephone, coupled with our existing and other soon to-be-released products, equates to continued growth and expansion of our customer base and network. … A Viper Networks customer will be able to access our system from any wireless hotspot and make local and long distance calls from a small handset not much bigger that a cell phone.”

AT&T Expands, Accelerates Business VoIP Services

AT&T is accelerating expansion of its business VoIP service portfolio, giving businesses VoIP across WANs and LANs. The company also says it will expand the service options that enable businesses to run voice over their existing managed data networks and VPNs.

AT&T is interoperable with five IP PBX equipment providers: Alcatel, Nortel Networks, Siemens, Avaya and Cisco. This interoperability allows AT&T to further develop VoIP services and applications. AT&T says it will continue its interoperability and certification program, which it launched in February 1999, with leading IP equipment providers to deliver IP telephony and VoIP services.

AT&T also says it will introduce a broader set of VoIPenabled options across its managed data and VPN portfolio. For example, it plans to deliver an IP local service option for its managed services customers, giving businesses VoIP capabilities on an end-to-end basis. The company has already “VoIP-enabled” most of its managed services portfolio. It also is working to develop three VoIP applications for business operations: IP Centrex, call center and teleworker solutions.

AT&T says its IP telephony LAN services can help businesses design and implement a migration path from separate premises voice and data networks to a unified, remotely managed platform and a gateway to future voice and data services. AT&T can manage customer equipment, such as call manager servers, voice gateways, voice e-mail, IP phones and IP soft phones.