IBM Chooses Summa Four For Geotek Wireless Infrastructure
Project
MANCHESTER, N.H., Sept. 8 /PRNewswire/ -- Summa Four, Inc., (Nasdaq:SUMA), today announced
that it has been selected to supply its VCO(R) Series of open programmable switches to IBM (NYSE:IBM
- news) under its Master Resale agreement. The switches are to be used by Geotek Communications, Inc.
to upgrade Geotek's FHMA wireless network architecture.
The initial forecast is for delivery of more than 20 switches, valued at several million dollars, for
deployment in commercial mobile radio networks in the United States and Korea.
``Being selected by these two industry leaders is an important milestone in the adoption of our VCO Series
as transport switches in wireless networks,'' said Bob Degan, president and CEO of Summa Four.
``Scaleable, flexible architectures are the key to meeting the demands of this highly competitive industry.
It takes a team effort to bring the best solutions to market quickly.''
Degan noted that a key factor in the selection was the VCO's ability to perform subrate switching.
Subrate switching greatly increases switch capacity, network bandwidth efficiency, and voice quality
because it enables up to eight voice and data transmissions to share a single 64K channel and eliminates
the need for repetitive transcoding.
IBM will use the switches to upgrade Geotek's Enhanced Specialty Mobile Radio (ESMR) network with
enhanced voice and data applications as well as implementing ``roaming'' and ``hand-off'' capabilities. The
switches will support interfaces to both wireless and PSTN networks using industry standard protocols
such as IS-41 and SS7.
``VCO's open interfaces and scaleable architecture will enable IBM to develop the feature-rich,
cost-effective solution Geotek requires for it's mobile customers,'' said Rich Caruso, general manager,
global solutions, IBM Global Telecommunications and Media Industries. ``Summa Four's VCO switches
are ideally suited for this wireless infrastructure application.'' |
