Dialogic scoops up EAS Group
By Mike Robuck
Dialogic Corp. announced today that it would purchase various entities that were formerly owned by EAS Group.
Dialogic, which is based in Montreal, Canada, acquired all of the outstanding shares of EAS Group and its subsidiaries including Cantata Technology Inc., Excel Switching Corp., Brooktrout Technology Inc. and SnowShore Networks Inc. The acquisition was a share-based transaction and the former shareholders of EAS are now minority shareholders in Dialogic.
Through the acquisition of EAS and its subsidiaries, Dialogic will expand its product portfolio and customer base in the communications technology enabling market segment with the portfolio of Cantata’s communication boards and software. Cantata’s printed circuit board products enable voice transmission, fax, and network connection within standard telephone networks, VoIP systems, and call center systems.
The addition of the SnowShore IP Media Server, the Excel Converged System Platform, the Excel Multi-Services Platform and Cantata Technology IMG 1010 product families will allow Dialogic to expand its customer base in the service provider market segment.
The Brooktrout TR1000, Brooktrout TR1034, Brooktrout TruFax and Brooktrout SR140 product families will aid Dialogic in serving the enterprise market segment
“We are very excited about this acquisition,” said Nick Jensen, Dialogic’s president and CEO. “It allows us to consolidate our position as the market segment leader and broaden our leading edge product and services portfolio. We are confident that we will seamlessly integrate this business into Dialogic as successfully as we did last year when we acquired Intel Corporation’s media and signaling business.”
Sigma Systems helps develop OSS/BSS integration standards
By Brian Santo
Sigma Systems has been working with the expert group at the TeleManagement Forum (TMF) charged with developing a specification for OSS/J Order Management APIs. The OSS/J order management API will enable service providers to effectively integrate OSS service management and BSS systems.
This working group combines the efforts of two groups that had been working separately, though in parallel, until last year – the OSS through Java (OSS/J) initiative and the TMF.
The latter was founded in 2000 to develop a set of J2EE, open interface standards for the telecommunications industry, including integration of BSS and OSS. The TMF is developing an OSS standards blueprint for New Generation OSS (NGOSS). OSS/J had come up with a suite of Java, XML, and Web Services APIs aligned with NGOSS that quickly link OSS applications together throughout their lifecycle. In May 2006, the OSS/J initiative partnered with the TMF.
This new order management API standardizes how an order capture system (billing or CRM) communicates with an OSS service management system, such as Sigma Systems’ Service Management Platform (SMP) 4.0, to handle product, service or work orders provisioned across a CSP’s service delivery network.
“The newest release of OSS/J APIs is a significant step towards accelerating convergence in the communications industry,” said Martin Creaner, president of the TMF. “It is a key milestone in our goal to make it easier for the industry to put the NGOSS framework into practice.”
Buckeye installs RR Enterprise’s telephony module
By Mike Robuck
Buckeye CableSystem has installed a telephony module from RR Enterprises to better serve its residential telephony customers.
“RR Telephony has provided the capability to capture mission critical customer and service information to deliver residential telephony on an integrated platform with our core video and data services,” said Mike Roth, Buckeye’s director of billing and carrier management, in a prepared statement. “We continue to expand our use of the RR telephony release, which will provide Buckeye order management, provisioning, and billing capabilities that ensure an accurate, timely, and cost-effective business environment as we face competitive entrants into our core services.”
While Buckeye has provided a commercial telephony service to its customers for years, Raymond Reichert, president of RR Enterprises, said the installation of the RR Telephony module has allowed Buckeye to offer voice, video and data services to its residential subscribers with an integrated triple play subscriber management system.
Buckeye was established in 1965 and provides cable television in northwestern Ohio and southeastern Michigan. It serves 28 communities and municipalities in the Toledo metropolitan area and another 12 communities in the Sandusky, Ohio, area, with approximately 150,000 total customers in the two areas, according to the company.
TWC launches Road Runner music services
By Traci Patterson
Time Warner Cable has launched two music products for its subscribers: Road Runner Music and Road Runner Music Portable.
Road Runner Music is a subscription-and-download store, and the portable service allows TWC subscribers to access the music while on the go.
MusicNet, through its partnership with Synacor, is providing the technology platform and content for the services. Synacor is providing the billing and authentication unification, the coordination of branding elements, marketing support, training and quality assurance for the services.
Performer Digital, MusicNet’s platform, gives TWC a branded, downloadable media player and Web-based client that surfaces MusicNet’s catalog – including music downloads, subscriptions and video. For the portable offering, the media player will enable ripping, burning and transfers to portable devices.
Road Runner Music includes unlimited access to more than three million songs, ad-free radio and music videos for $9.95 per month. Road Runner Music Portable makes the service transportable on up to three devices for an extra $5 per month.
BT gets on the FON to drive Wi-Fi usage
Copyright 2007 Newspaper Publishing PLC
By Nic Fildes, The Independent (London)
BT yesterday pledged to create the world’s largest wireless broadband community through a deal with the company FON, which will allow customers to share broadband capacity.
The telecoms giant described the project as “a people’s network of Wi-Fi” and will urge its three million broadband customers to join the service. The project already includes around half a million existing FON customers around the world.
Customers will get free access to FON’s Wi-Fi hotspots in countries including Japan, the USA, Spain and France, as well as when in range of other BT FON users. The opt-in service, which will be delivered via an over-the-air download, makes around half a megabit of a customer’s capacity available for use by other BT FON members.
The two companies aim to build a secure worldwide network of Wi-Fi users who can access potentially millions of hotspots to wirelessly connect to the high-speed Internet free of charge.
Martin Varsavsky, the founder and chief executive of FON, said: “This is the push that Wi-Fi needs to make it ubiquitous.”
FON already operates 190,000 hotspots around the world, but its growth has been constrained in countries including the USA by the need for the user to buy special hardware.
As part of the deal, BT will take a stake in FON, joining the 18-month-old start-up’s high-profile backers Google, eBay’s Skype unit, Index Ventures and Sequoia Capital (the private equity company that backed the likes of Google and YouTube).
FON makes revenue when non-BT FON users log on to its Wi-Fi hotspots, with users charged roughly £3 a day.
For BT, the deal will stimulate the use of Wi-Fi following its own investment in hotspots across the country, and will act as a customer retention and acquisition tool.
Gavin Patterson, the head of BT’s consumer division, said he expected most customers to become BT FON users.
Broadband Briefs for 10/05/07
* Verizon expands broadband network in West
By Traci Patterson
Verizon Wireless has expanded its high-speed Internet coverage in California, Nevada and Utah.
Verizon’s CDMA 1x EV-DO Rev. A technology is now available in the Logan, Utah, area and in southern Utah; in parts of northern California, including Humboldt County; and in the Nevada cities of Elko, Ely, Hawthorne and Reno.