Nortel Bringing Voip And Multimedia Services To Regional North America

Silver Star Communications, Emily Telephone Company Taking Telephony To The Next Level For Regional Subscribers
TORONTO – Nortel* [NYSE/TSX: NT] has simplified the transition from traditional voice technology to VoIP making it easy for regional service providers like Silver Star Communications and the Emily Cooperative Telephone Company (ECTC) to provide the latest voice and multimedia services to their customers. Nortel’s technology seamlessly integrates with the service provider’s existing TDM infrastructure making it affordable for small and medium-sized operators to bring VoIP to their customers.


Silver Star Communications and ECTC are among the latest service providers to choose Nortel’s Communication Server (CS) 1500, an IP multimedia softswitch launched in June 2007. The CS 1500 allows regional service providers to meet growing subscriber demand for next-generation voice services like personal conference bridges and click-to-call functionality as well as new multimedia communications and PC-based voice calling. Nortel has 117 CS 1500 softswitches deployed or on order to 85 carriers throughout regional North America and Russia.

The CS 1500 is an IMS-ready softswitch created specifically to address the budgetary constraints of the regional carrier market. It allows service providers to continue to support traditional voice services while evolving to advanced IP-based communications that integrate voice and multimedia services from the same VoIP platform. The solution offers cost-effective evolution for existing Nortel DMS-10, DCO and EWSD switch customers - technologies widely installed in current carrier telephone systems. As a result, service providers like Silver Star Communications and ECTC are able to reuse existing line equipment to transition from multiple switch vendors and migrate to VoIP at their own pace. Phased evolution can reduce capital investment by up to 40 percent compared to full switch replacement.

“The CS 1500 is high performance VoIP in a small package. It enables regional service providers to bring premium voice, video, and data communications to regional North American customers,” said John McCready, general manager, Carrier Multimedia Networks, Nortel. “The CS 1500 ensures that customers of regional service providers have access to the same advanced voice and multimedia services as customers in large metropolitan areas. As well, Nortel’s CS 1500 ensures that regional service providers have a VoIP platform that allows them to reap the maintenance and cost benefits of a converged network.”

ECTC**, located in Emily, Minnesota, was the first customer in North America to migrate their traditional DCO lines to VoIP using the Nortel CS1500-GENBAND G6 gateway solution. This solution, announced in July 2007, allows service providers like ECTC to seamlessly transition to VoIP and extend Nortel’s migration capabilities to DCO and EWSD switches. GENBAND’s media gateways, when paired with the Nortel CS 1500, enables users of legacy TDM voice switches to migrate to Nortel VoIP at a significantly lower cost by reusing rather than replacing existing line equipment.

“We’ve been providing cutting-edge communication services to our customers for more than 30 years,” said Bob Olson, general manager, ECTC. “Our mission is to continue providing the latest voice services at competitive prices, so we needed a solution that would allow us to meet this demand without spending exorbitant amounts of money on replacing our existing line equipment. The Nortel-GENBAND solution was exactly what we needed – it allowed us to capitalize on new business opportunities while keeping our operational costs down.”

Silver Star Communications**, has been serving the Star Valley area of Western Wyoming for the past 60 years. Today, they provide both traditional and advanced telecommunications services to their subscriber base with the help of Nortel’s CS 1500 for VoIP services.

“Our goal is to be the preferred provider of telecommunications products and services throughout the area,” said Ron E. McCue, vice president, Silver Star Communications. “We needed to evolve our existing network to VoIP to meet customer demand for converged and multimedia services so we decided to use Nortel’s CS 1500. Nortel’s technology allowed us to easily and economically expand our service offerings while keeping our operational costs down.”

According to Dell’Oro Group, Nortel is the worldwide leader in carrier VoIP and has maintained that position for the last six years (2002-2007). Nortel has shipped 88 million carrier IP voice and multimedia ports to over 250 carriers globally and Nortel’s IMS-ready solutions have been adopted by over 150 customers, including carriers operating across wireline, wireless and cable domains.
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