GENBAND Acquires NSN’s Media Gateways and a Channel Gateway to the World Market

| Apr 16, 2008 | Carrier IP Telephony | Competitive Intelligence Report

| Analyst: Jeff Ogle

Current Perspective: Positive
Vendor Importance: Moderate/High
Market Impact: Moderate

Event Summary

April 14, 2008 – GENBAND has announced it has reached a five year OEM agreement with Nokia Siemens Network to be the preferred supplier of trunking media gateways for their global fixed network market. GENBAND will also acquire the NSN SURPASS hiG fixed line trunking media gateway product line. The product acquisition will strengthen GENBAND’s position in the fixed network gateway market and expand the company’s international reach especially in APAC and CALA regions. GENBAND will also obtain the team in Brazil focused on hiG development, program and product management.

Analytical Summary

• Current Perspective: Positive on GENBAND becoming the preferred supplier of trunking media gateways for Nokia Siemens Networks (NSN), through a five year OEM agreement, and simultaneously acquiring the SURPASS hiG fixed line trunking media gateway product line from NSN. The acquisition provides GENBAND with a new product and technology with built-in supply side demand and a new distribution channel with global reach. With NSN as a channel partner, GENBAND now has the majority of the legacy softswitch and IMS vendors in its corner.

• Vendor Importance: Moderate to high to GENBAND because from its perspective it has gained a product line, reduced its competitive playing field by a significant player, gained a new channel partner and increased its worldwide geographic coverage all in one strategic move. GENBAND can position this move by NSN as evidence of its best of breed capability.

• Market Impact: Moderate on the media gateway products within the IP Services Infrastructure market segment because this move initially only rearranges ownership of existing platforms and therefore has little immediate impact to this market segment. Over time this could become significant, however, as GENBAND continues to position itself to be the media gateway company of choice for a majority of the Tier 1 vendors that operate in this segment.

Recommended Competitor Actions

• Alcatel-Lucent has just completed its first step in product rationalization, giving the media gateway models numbers consistent with the Alcatel-Lucent nomenclature that will remove any hint as to the original platform’s roots. The next step is to provide more of a solution strategy including the network management with northbound integration to OSS/BSS systems and transition path to IMS in the wireline side.

• Cisco should position its media gateway platform -- the MGX 8880 -- as one of the more recently designed and built products with its general availability in 2004, and having a very rich feature set based upon its lineage from the MGX 8850. This and the fact that the MGX 8880 has probably been deployed with a greater variety of softswitches than any other vendor’s media gateway.

• Nortel should highlight its consistent number one or two position in this market space and the fact that the MG 15000 supports wireless CDMA and GSM/UMTS networks as well as wireline IMS solutions and TISPAN NGN solutions, thus ensuring convergence. Nortel has a rich history of providing wireline and wireless solutions to service providers and enterprise customers for decades.

• Sonus should emphasize its large scale deployments and in addition to TMD-to-IP mediation capabilities the GSX 9000 has been equipped with IP-to-IP network border capabilities similar to the functions found in session border controllers (SBC) all controlled through the Sonus Insight management system. Sonus is also actively participating in the OSMINE process to facilitate seamless integration into the OSS environment.

• Veraz should position its media gateway solution, the I-Gate 4000 Pro, as an open platform designed to support industry standards and provide a migration path to the IMS architecture of the future. Veraz’s VoIP media gateways can be deployed without the need for a signaling softswitch and supports extensive network management capabilities for both operational efficiencies and integration with back office OSS/BSS systems and vendors.

Recommended End User / Customer Actions

• Service providers and carriers looking for media gateways should consider the product portfolio offered from GENBAND for its completeness in market coverage coupled with its in-depth ability to provide support for legacy systems and installations. Few vendors will have as much experience working with a multiplicity of softswitches as GENBAND.

• Greenfield service providers should consider solutions from Sonus and Veraz based upon the size and requirements of the network. These vendors have also demonstrated their ability and understanding of the issues involved with building and running large multimedia fixed and/or wireless networks. Both have carved out network positions against the larger traditional Tier 1 players like Nortel and Cisco.

• End users that are running IP backbones based upon Cisco platforms should consider the MGX 8880 for their large scale media gateway applications. With its lineage going back several years and based upon the field-proven and hardened platform of the MGX 8850, this path will offer a scalable solution with a minimal amount of vendor interoperability issues.

• End users with a legacy of Nortel equipment should consider the MG 15000 and/or its smaller sibling, the 7400, for its media gateways. Nortel has consistently maintained its number one or two position in this market segment through offering a fully featured and field hardened platform along with its softswitch.

CLIENTS ONLY

Current Perspective

Competitive Positives and Concerns

Recommended Vendor Actions

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