Lebanon-based Carrier partners with Verscom to upgrade worldwide presence with NexTone IntelliConnect System

Xplorium maintains a presence in Europe, the U.S., the Middle East, and Africa, and is a member of the Comium Group of companies, which provides mobile, data, and Internet business solutions globally.

Xplorium and Verscom, NexTone's value-added reseller in the MENA region, have engaged in a partnership agreement for the supply and deployment of NexTone's technology along with architectural design, integration, training, and post-sales support services. Xplorium is transforming its network with NexTone's session management technologies so it can expand its services geographically and strengthen its core business.

Xplorium selected NexTone for its new VoIP network solution because it offers all the elements for deploying a secure service that supports a full range of multimedia capabilities and provides a clear evolution path. The NexTone-based NGN service will allow Xplorium to very quickly adapt to the needs and demands of its expanding residential and business customer base with high-quality services and innovative features at highly competitive rates. By using NexTone's technologies, Xplorium is able to provide a state-of-the-art way to exchange, secure, monitor, control, and bill for voice and multimedia sessions flowing through IP networks. These capabilities will enable Xplorium to add new revenue-generating services, including real-time data, video, and fixed-mobile and mobile-fixed convergence. In addition, the company will use NexTone's technology to route VoIP calls to and from its GSM assets in Liberia, Sierra Leone, the Ivory Coast, and other nations in Africa. Verscom installed and integrated the NexTone equipment at Xplorium's main switching center in Paris, which provides direct routes to countries worldwide and provides core/edge session control support for all kinds of IP multimedia application elements.

The IntelliConnect System includes NexTone's Session Border Controller (SBC), Multiprotocol Session Exchange (MSX), and Real-Time Session Manager (RSM). Within Xplorium's network, the NexTone SBC acts as the application dispatcher between the CPE or access domain and the application domain, including NGN SIP/IP multimedia applications such as broadband telephony, interactive voice response (IVR), and IP-video. The SBC also monitors and controls end-to-end sessions to measure real-time QoS metrics.

Xplorium uses NexTone's MSX for managing VoIP interconnections; it is the core session controller in "call control" mode for SS7 and PRI interconnect gateways. The 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 Xplorium 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 IMS networks.

The RSM product uses NexTone's unique Dynamic Policy Management (DPM) technology to enable service providers such as Xplorium 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.

Suheil Zurub, General Manager of Xplorium "We're building out our core network based on NexTone's technology. The IntelliConnect System addresses our need for a flexible, advanced, IMS-ready, and cost-effective network core that provides us the leverage to bundle several IP multimedia and mobile services into one comprehensive offering for our international consumer community. The IntelliConnect System also offers easy, fast, and high-quality interconnection opportunities, while enabling us to grow our existing international traffic for our international carrier partners."

Gokce Bilyay, CEO of Verscom "Xplorium, the strategic affiliate of such an esteemed name like Comium Group, is an outstanding example of a thriving Middle East-based service provider that provides advanced services around the world. Verscom is committed to helping the MENA market grow over the long term, and establishing relationships with leading companies such as Xplorium and NexTone is key to our plans for aggressive expansion in the area."

Rene Hartkamp, Managing Director, EMEA, for NexTone - "We're glad to be selected as the preferred solution for the new Xplorium NGN network. Our relationship with Xplorium is another example of our strong cooperation with Verscom and shows our commitment to and support of the expansion of NGN technologies in the MENA region. The telecommunications market is vibrant throughout the Near East and North Africa, and more customers in the region are recognizing the value of our IntelliConnect System in enabling rapid deployment of high-quality VoIP and other IP-based services."

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