Rawabi Telecom is appointed preferred NexTone partner in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

RTS, which is a subsidiary of Rawabi Holding Company, one of the KSA's largest and fastest-growing companies, will deploy NexTone's IntelliConnect™ System for its integrated VoIP infrastructure offerings. The IntelliConnect System includes NexTone's Session Border Controller (SBC), Multiprotocol Session Exchange (MSX), and Real-Time Session Manager (RSM).

NexTone, Verscom, and Rawabi Telecom have engaged in a trilateral relationship for the supply and deployment of NexTone products, initially into the KSA and then into other GCC countries. NexTone and Verscom will collaboratively support RTS' efforts to promote its products by means of marketing and business development, training, IP know-how, and program management resources.

Rawabi Telecom is focused on the development of advanced services infrastructures to support the economical delivery of integrated VoIP, landline, Internet, IPTV, and mobile services bundles for operators, while providing them with new value, simplicity, and choice for providing new telecom services. As part of its effort, RTS will initially offer a range of VoIP services infrastructure solutions—including voice over broadband telephony, enterprise VoIP trunking, IP conferencing, prepaid calling card, and wholesale VoIP Interconnect—to the largest operators, then ultimately to consumers.

RTS will provide these solutions/services first in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia then throughout the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Oman, Qatar, and Kuwait, working closely with established industry leaders such as NexTone and Verscom to bring to market next-generation communications services (NGN) as the region's telecom industry undergoes deregulation.

Verscom, NexTone's value-added distributor/system integrator in the MENA region, is a next-generation IP Services solutions provider and system integrator that provides a pioneering approach in assisting Tier-n carriers and IT service providers build solid and cost-effective operations within their countries. Using its first-hand knowledge of the region, Verscom has successfully managed and deployed various NGN solutions in EMEA including prepaid cards, broadband telephony, CLASS-5 services, and wholesale VoIP.

In addition to facilitating the introduction of NGN infrastructures to the regional networking community, Rawabi Telecom established its regional competency and training center in Bahrain. Building on its alliance with NexTone and Verscom, and on its Bahrain Competency Center, RTS plans to manage all NGN activities for the region's largest operators as well as for the growing number of newly licensed mobile, fixed, and data companies entering the market as liberalization takes hold in 2007.

Maro Simatovic, COO, Rawabi Telecom and Software, said

"We believe NexTone's market position and experience in providing intelligent session management solutions, and Verscom's vision and experience in supporting our targets in the region's telecom industry, will help make our venture a success. Encouraged by this fact, we'll be honored to ally with NexTone/Verscom to transform the IP services landscape in the Gulf States and the Middle East. Our alliance is not restricted to KSA, but rather shows our commitment to and support of the economic growth of the Kingdom, GCC countries, and the greater MENA region. We believe that strategy must be driven by customer requirements so as to avoid innovations that no one actually needs. We intend to use the leverage of NexTone and Verscom, plus Rawabi Holding Company's brand power, efficient customer communication channels, and edge in customer acquisition and retention, to bundle landline, Internet, and television with mobile services into one comprehensive offering delivering service improvements as well as value and choice for consumers."

The Saudi Arabian telecom market is rapidly becoming more competitive. The large population, fast-growing economy, and relatively low penetration rates in broadband, for example, make this a market with exciting potential. Some 50 percent of the Saudi Arabian population is estimated to be less than 20 years old, according to The Economist magazine. This is ample proof of the long-term market opportunity for creative NGN applications allowed by the deployment of NexTone session management services.

The NexTone MSX offers flexibility and scalability while ensuring consistent service quality, protection, and security within a VoIP network; its SIP and H.323 signaling intelligence adapts session signaling at the network edge, thus enabling carriers to successfully interconnect to any fixed or mobile IP network. The MSX provides access control and performs private-to-public IP network address translation (NAT) in real time while also supporting NAT traversal, topology hiding, route enforcement, and the regulation of bandwidth consumption between networks.

NexTone's RSM is a dynamic policy manager providing centralized QoS/SLA management and traffic engineering to VoIP and IP multimedia subsystems (IMS) networks. RSM uses NexTone's unique Dynamic Policy Management (DPM) technology to enable operators to automatically control interconnects used by real-time sessions; to optimize service quality, availability, and network capacity; and to free operators to tackle more complex issues of IP and IMS service delivery.

Gokce Bilyay, CEO, Verscom, said "The GCC Region, especially the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, is a strategic market for us, aligning with our aggressive Gulf States expansion plans. With its thriving telecom market indicators, Saudi Arabia is going to act as a gateway to Gulf States and the Middle East. Our cooperation with Rawabi Telecom and NexTone is now paving our way for an exciting future in the region."

Dan Dearing, Vice President of Marketing, NexTone, said "Being selected as the preferred solution enabling Rawabi Telecom to introduce NGN services infrastructure solutions in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is another milestone for NexTone. Through our cooperation with Rawabi and Verscom, NexTone's IntelliConnect System will enable carriers in the MENA region to quickly interconnect with one another to offer high-quality VoIP services and promote the growth of IP telecom services throughout countries in the GCC. NexTone provides the sophisticated session management solutions that will give Rawabi a competitive edge in this progressing market."