Facilities-based wholesale provider 360networks, which earlier this month accepted  a deal to be acquired by Zayo Group, has expanded its own IP Origination footprint, adding 48 rate centers in the Houston LATA. With the addition--which has a population coverage of some 4.5 million--360networks now provides wholesale VoIP services in six of the nation's 10 largest metropolitan areas, and 1606 rate centers covering a population base of over 80 million people across 17 states.

360networks offers a full suite of VoIP services that includes IP Origination, IP Termination, and Toll Free, with a variety of pricing models and features. The VoIP services leverage the company's 18,500 route mile fiber optic backbone to reduce costs and minimize third party dependencies.

It's been a busy year for the company. Besides being acquired, the company has been expanding its presence in Texas and, in July, launched 360connect, a new VoIP customer portal. It's also currently in beta trial for the 360connect Application Programming Interface (API).

"Extending our VoIP reach to include Houston, and other Texas markets, is an obvious extension for customers to use 360networks as their single source provider," said Nick Reifschneider, VoIP product director for 360networks. 

For more:
- see this release

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The increasing popularity of employees working remotely is causing security and networking headaches for enterprises trying to include them in their unified communications functionality. Traditional firewalls struggle to support UC real-time protocols, and, as a result, employees seldom realize the value of UC application investment.

The EdgeMarc Enterprise Session Border Controller (pictured) can terminate multiple TLS connectors from remote locations.

But Edgewater Networks, which in May launched a new session border controller targeted at SMBs and branch offices of larger enterprises, has rolled out yet another SBC designed to extend UC.

Its EdgeProtect Series e-SBC enables enterprises to save money while securely connecting all employees--including remote and distributed personnel--to their UC systems and IP PBXs.

The EdgeProtect solution uses Transport Layer Security to simplify connectivity and provide confidentiality, authentication and encryption for all IP-based voice, video and data connections. It also integrates passive call quality monitoring to isolate network impairments to local or wide area network segments. 

The new platforms--there are three interations--terminate multiple TLS connections from remote locations using Edgewater Networks EdgeMarc Enterprise Session Border Controllers.

The EdgeProtect solution is fully interoperable with any IP-based UC system, including solutions from Alcatel-Lucent, Avaya, Cisco Systems, IBM, Interactive Intelligence, Microsoft, Mitel, NEC, ShoreTel, HP Networking, Siemens, Digium and Aastra.  As securing voice and video devices can be complicated due to inconsistent encryption support and certificate management issues across components, the EdgeProtect solution provides comprehensive security for all IP phones, PC soft clients and server systems including those that do not natively support encryption services.

"Unified Communications holds the promise of increased productivity and reduced costs but only if implemented easily and reliably," said David G. Norman, CEO of Edgewater Networks. "The EdgeProtect solution enables enterprise organizations to save money and create a competitive advantage by providing simplified, secure access to their UC systems."

For more:
- see this release

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Sean Buckley over at FierceTelecom sat down with 360Networks CTO Brady Adams to talk about wholesale services and migrating from legacy to next gen networks. Interview

In a vote of confidence for the security of its networks, 360networks has announced that it will be providing private line circuits for CDS Telecom.

CDS Telecom is a provider of project management, design and engineering services for DoD, federal government and commercial telecommunications projects. The telecom company will use 360networks' western state connectivity to support a government project in that area.

"The end users who rely upon our circuits are responsible for safeguarding our nation, and network security and reliability are crucial to those missions," said CDS vice president and general manager Mark Whitney in a release. "360networks not only got us precisely where we needed to go, something other providers were not able to do, but they did so using a robust network that is necessary to support our ultra-important end users."

360networks is a facilities-based full service wholesale provider of VoIP, Private Line Transport, IP and Local Access solutions and the company claims its focus on advanced networking helped it win the deal.

For more:
- read the release

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360networks has been busy making upgrades and adding services to its wholesale VoIP product suite.

First, the wholesale operator has upgraded its wholesale VoIP by offering Orca Wave's BlueWater software. The software is a voice routing management system which will help enhance and streamline the wholesaler's OCN-LATA and NPA-NXX based routing and monitoring capabilities, carrier rating tools, code management, and detailed reporting.

"With the integration of Orca's Blue Water software and improved processes our operations become even more productive to enhance services and increase value to our customers," said Brady Adams, 360networks' CTO in a release.

Second on 360networks' list of updates is the addition of SMS/MMS features to its wholesale VoIP offering. The wholesale provider also upgraded its VoIP Origination service to include support for short message service/multimedia message service (SMS/MMS). It also added a new metered inbound pricing model for communications service providers requiring billing based on total minutes of call time.

For more:
- read the Orca Wave release
- read the SMS/MMS announcement

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360networks, a wholesale VoIP and fiber wholesale provider, announced it will use Empirix's Hammer XMS monitoring and troubleshooting system to watch its 17,000 route mile fiber network.

Empirix's Hammer XMS is a network monitoring system that offers visualization of real-time service quality using a graphical user interface to optimize the search and diagnostic process and monitor the network for negative trends in voice quality.

"The integration of Empirix's Hammer XMS technology allows us to manage both VoIP and TDM call flows into a single application, improving fault isolation and network performance," said Brady Adams, chief technology officer of 360networks in a release.

For more:
- read the release

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In a move to simplify IP communications deployments, Nortel Carrier VoIP Application Solutions (CVAS) has teamed up with Edgewater Networks to provide the the gateway maker's products to Nortel CVAS customers.

According to FierceVoIP's interview with Nortel, the new thing about this partnership with Edgwater is that Nortel CVAS will be selling SMBs the entire package combining Edgewater's EdgeMarc Network Services Gateways and EdgeView VoIP Support System with Nortel's Hosted IP Communications--offering a holistic approach that will be plug and play. Offering one package to get them up and running, the new offering will relieve customers of the task of purchasing, installing and managing additional CPE infrastructure.

Nortel's Hosted IP communications gives service providers carrier-hosted UCC for enterprise customers with email, IM, VoIP, click-to-call and video calling. Edgewater's EdgeMarc Network Services Gateways and EdgeView VoIP Support system will add IP Routing, survivability, SIP call processing and QoS functions to these services.

For more:
- read the release

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True mobile VoIP on the iPhone has been a long time coming. A few months ago we were awash in announcements from various software-based VoIP vendors that they had VoIP apps for the iPhone only to find that those apps worked over WiFi and nothing else. Well, that may be changing ASAP.

In fact, there is already an iPhone app in the iTunes App Store ready for you to download and try out called iCall. The app's page explains the new functionality: "3G 3G 3G 3G! You can now use iCall over 3G networks!!!"--which I think shows the excitement is both on the user and developer side. Initial reviews say the app works great.

The shift to allow 3G VoIP came yesterday with the Apple iPad announcement (which presumably has this VoIP functionality as well) and the release of a new version of the iPhone SDK. The new SDK has made the new cellular network access features available to developers and it will be only a matter of time before we see Skype, Vonage, 8x8, Truphone and the rest of the gang launching VoIP apps (and presumably crashing AT&T's 3G network.)

For more:
- read this ZDNet article
- check out the iCall app in the App Store

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LOS ANGELES - Sipera, maker of VoIP security solutions, prefers that customers proactively prepare their communications networks before serious problems arise. But Adam Boone, VP of marketing for Sipera, said some anecdotes from panels at IT EXPO West show that often security doesn't cross people's minds until it's much too late.

At a panel in which he participated, Boone said one presenter, an executive at a VoIP and UC reseller in Southern California, admitted just how costly failing to secure the company's network proved to be.

"No one likes to admit that they've been victimized by toll fraud," Boone said. "But he pulled out a monthly bill for $19,000 resulting from a hack over a weekend that resulted in 9,000 minutes of international dialing before the employees came back on Monday to discover something was wrong. Their usual monthly bill was only a couple hundred dollars."

Boone said it's best to identify weaknesses and vulnerabilities in a voice network during deployment, before "hair on fire" issues like toll fraud or corporate espionage demand immediate, costly attention.

He shared another story of a Fortune 100 client that was involved in major litigation with a competitor, who they believed was eavesdropping on their VoIP communications. Sipera diagnosed the vulnerabilities, but before fixing them, let the firm plant evidence in phone calls. Sure enough, that planted information was presented by the competition in the litigation soon after, and the client was able to prove that the competitor was up to no good.

Boone said the company plans to expand into IP video surveillance and video teleconferencing security in the next 12 months.

Voxbone, a wholesaler of transferrable VoIP phone numbers to service providers, announced that 8 out of 10 respondents wanted to have on phone number for life so as not to lose contact information after a move or service provider change, according to the results of a survey it commissioned. It said the traditional line-based way phone numbers are handled needs to shift to an individually focused strategy, and it aims to facilitate that transition through its iNum service, which lets consumers keep the same phone number, even if moving overseas.

Voxbone CEO Rod Ullens said the company buys bundles of numbers from the ITU, then sells them to service providers for resale to end-users. Voxbone maintains relationships with a large number of VoIP and next-gen network operators to let consumers keep their number where ever they might move, and Ullens said the company is seeking additional partnerships with incumbent telcos and mobile network operators to expand the iNum programs reach.

"As the world population becomes increasingly migratory, phone numbers need to evolve to reflect users' changing expectations," Ullens said in a release. "There's a new geography being created that's about local presence and global relationships rather than distance or national borders. People no longer consider themselves tied down to a single location and don't expect their phone number to be either." 

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Telekenex, a San Francisco-based managed IP service provider, is enhancing its wholesale service arrangement with Level 3 Communications. Through this new agreement, Telekenex will be able to take advantage of Level 3's private line and Ethernet-based Internet services. From there, Telekenex can connect its network locations through a private high speed network while delivering its own customers up to 10 Gbps of network connectivity. These 10 Gbps connections will be supported with Level 3 SLAs.

"Level 3 has proven its value in delivering the reliable communications services we--and our customers--need," said Anthony Zabit, president and COO of Telekenex in a press release. "As our business continues to grow, it's important to have an IP service provider that can grow in lock-step with us."

 For more:
- here's the press release

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Iowa Network Services (INS) and Onvoy Voice Services have employed Tekelec to monitor their jointly-owned SS7 network to monitor the increased presence of IP and VoIP traffic traversing their respective networks. The two service providers will leverage Tekelec's Integrated Applications Solution (IAS) to monitor, correlate and report on multi-protocol network traffic to deliver intelligence information for troubleshooting and traffic management. Tekelec is not a stranger to INS. INS already leverages Tekelec's EAGLE SS7 to deliver wholesale SS7 services to other Local Exchange Carriers, CLECs and wireless operators.  

In May, INS and Onvoy replaced their former network management product with the IAS solution, which can conduct network monitoring and reporting in both the legacy SS7 and next-gen SIP domains. Tekelec says the IAS can provide service providers troubleshooting capabilities and KPIs to support traffic management, security and wireless services and SMS. What's more, the IAS can support both TDM and VoIP network with a common set of applications so service providers with blended networks can conduct real-time performance management.  

For more:
- see the release here

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ShoreTel reported a slimmer GAAP net loss for it its fiscal fourth quarter and would have had a profitable quarter were it not for $2.2 million in stock-based compensation charges it incurred. The company reported fiscal fourth quarter revenues of $32.4 million and a GAAP net loss of $700,000. Revenues climbed 4 percent from fiscal Q3 2009, and the company's GAAP net loss narrowed from the $7.0 million loss in the previous fiscal quarter.

ShoreTel CEO John Combs said the revenue growth was a positive time for the company as it operates in "arguably the worst economy since the Great Depression." In the company's earnings call, he touted the addition of Qwest and Verizon to ShoreTel's distribution network as well as integration with IBM SameTime as positive indicators of future market success.

For the fiscal year 2009, ShoreTel said it added almost 3,000 enterprise customers, pushing its total end-user license sales to more than 1 million.

The company said fiscal first quarter 2010 revenues will be between $30 million and $35 million. It ended fiscal 2009 with $108 million in cash and cash equivalents. 

For more:
- see the press release here
- see the earnings call transcript at Seeking Alpha here 

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Broadview Networks, a business communications provider, announced its has purchased some of its Natural Convergence Inc.'s software, hardware and intellectual property assets, including the rights to the silhouette product line. Natural Convergence, which is insolvent according to reports, purchased assets from another defunct company, NewStep Networks, just two months prior, raising some questions about the firm's capital allocation.

After that acquisition, Natural Convergence President Bill Crank said in an interview that the company was looking at other purchasing opportunities in the next six to nine months, but it appears that poor economic conditions have reversed that equation. Broadview said it would hire nine Natural Convergence employees as part of the purchase, according Venturewire.

For more:
- see the Ottowa Citizen article here 

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