Comprehensive VoIP solution from Unisphere
2001-04-11
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(BizIT)
e LOGISTICS
The company has 37 customers in the Asia-Pacific region, including Korea Telecom, China Telecom, PCCW-HKT, StarHub and Telekom Malaysia
US-BASED Unisphere Networks Inc has launched its "Intelligent Services PoP" (Points of Presence) solutions to enable service providers to offer voice services on existing and next- gen data networking infrastructure.
"We can offer this service from any line, including a corporate user's private line, broadband, dialup, corporate VPN (Virtual Private Network), content provider or voice provider," said Tom Burkardt, Unisphere's Chelmsford, Massachusetts-based chief operating officer and executive vice-president. "We believe that carriers have to offer both data and voice services to be successful."
The company is targeting VoIP services to ISPs, access providers, telcos, and ASPs. "Many carriers have dual network solutions," Mr Burkardt said.
"Vendors such as Cisco Systems provide data-adding voice, while Nortel and Lucent provide voice-adding data. Unisphere is unique in that it provides both voice and data over IP. We believe we're the only company that can deliver wire-speed packet routing and voice applications."
The Chelmsford, Massachusetts-based company -- www.unispherenetworks.com -- was set up in March 1999 when Siemens merged three voice and data networking companies -- Castle Networks, Redstone Communications and Argon Networks -- with Siemens Information and Communications Networks Group assets. Unisphere now offers data and voice services and infrastructure products such as IP routing, broadband access, voice switching, and service management.
The company employs 718 people worldwide, including about 40 staff in 10 Asia-Pacific offices that it controls from its Hongkong HQ. In Singapore, Unisphere has eight employees. For its last financial year-ended September 2000, Unisphere grossed US$49.6 million (S$89.7 million) in revenues; it reported US$30.06 million in revenues for Q1 2001.
Mr Burkardt said Unisphere has 37 customers in the Asia-Pacific region, including Tier-1 service providers such as Korea Telecom, China Telecom, PCCW-HKT, StarHub, Chung Hwa Telecom, Telekom Malaysia, and TelstraSaturn in New Zealand.
"According to Infonetics Research, we had 50.4 per cent market share in the broadband DSL (digital subscriber line) market in the Asia-Pacific region last year," he said.
"Our competitors are Shasta (Nortel) with around 30 per cent share in 2000; Redback Networks with about 9.7 per cent; and Dana (Alcatel) with 8 per cent."
In September 2000, i-STT, a subsidiary of Singapore Technologies Telemedia, chose Unisphere's ERX-1400 Edge Routing Switch for its pan-Asia WebCentres in Singapore, Hongkong, Thailand and Indonesia.
"SingTel has just signed on with us as a select partner," he said.
"Carriers grew up with voice networks, then discovered that data cannot go over circuit-switched voice networks. The dominant data network is IP, but legacy networks don't support voice. It's our job to make it happen -- that data and voice services can go over IP. It's an exciting time for us in Asia. Most countries here are very good at leap-frogging slow-moving technologies. ISDN is dead, it's a waste of money to invest in it. The future belongs to IP."
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