Updated TDS Telecom (NYSE: TDS) is leveraging Metaswitch's Perimeta session border controllers (SBC) as one of the elements in its growing managedIP services suite for business customers.
Already using Metawitch equipment in its network, the service provider found that the vendor had the right SBC that could scale to address the scale of its IP services, particularly SIP.
"SBC is part of the managedIP offering and as it grows we have to add capacity to our network so that's how this project got started," said Ken Paker, vice president of Network Services at TDS, in an interview with FierceTelecom. "We did an RFP for Session Border Controller providers and picked Metaswitch and have the first system installed for the last couple of months, which has been going well."
While the SBC market has consolidated greatly with just a few players dominating the scene, Paker said what set apart Metawitch from other players was its architecture.
"What was interesting about this product is that it has a distributed architecture so you can centralize the control, but the actual devices that actually do the work are placed in various spots around the network," he said. "That allows us to scale up and scale down to meet the particular market demand."
Like other traditional telcos, TDS Telecom is seeing an uptick in its managedIP hosted VoIP services, which is now available in 17 states including South Carolina.
Although it has announced the date of its Q1 earnings, TDS continues to report managedIP services growth every quarter. In Q4 2012, managedIP stations (both CLEC and ILEC) rose 77 percent, or 41,000, to end the quarter with a total of 94,600 stations.
The telco increased its managedIP growth potential in late February when it acquired regional cable operator Baja Broadband.
At the time of that announcement, Drew Petersen, vice president of government and regulatory affairs for TDS Telecom, told FierceTelecom that managedIP is "a product we can bring into the Baja marketplace and penetrate the commercial space."
For more:
- see the release
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Article updated April 17 to include quotes FierceTelecom got directly from Ken Paker about TDS' deployment of Metaswitch's SBCs in its network.