NXTcomm08

Acme Packet Adds IBM Tivoli Netcool Support, Near Real-time Voice Quality Measurement, and Customized CDRs

| Jun 17, 2008 | IP Services Infrastructure | Show Update

| Analyst: Jeff Ogle

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

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Event Summary

June 13, 2008 -- Acme Packet announced several product enhancements to its Net-Net family of session border controllers (SBCs), multiservice gateways, and session routing proxies (SRPs). The enhancements include support for IBM Tivoli Netcool, a service manager platform; product-specific features, including voice quality measurements using R-factor and mean opinion score (MOS) scoring; and customizable call detail records (CDRs) with SIP message content.

Analytical Summary

• Current Perspective: Slightly positive on Acme Packet’s announced enhancements to its portfolio, because they specifically address management integration with third-party devices, quality measurement of voice calls, and customizable billing records, three very important aspects of any network solution. These recently-added capabilities are required to lay a framework from which to measure IP interactive communications in near real-time to create service-awareness that will in turn support service level agreements (SLAs) and monetization of the operator’s traffic.

• Vendor Importance: Moderate to high to Acme Packet, because it has positioned itself as a best-of-breed supplier and, as such, the company must also present a complete solution set that can easily be integrated with existing network management applications and back office systems. Having these solutions, and complementary, pre-qualified third-party solutions, will allow it to be compliant with formal RFPs and RFIs, improving Acme Packet’s chances of advancing to the next step and quickly entering lab trials as part of a vendor selection process.

• Market Impact: Moderate on the IP Services Infrastructure market, because the two new features, and the functionality of interfacing to “northbound” management systems (and generating billing records), are table stakes requirements for any service provider looking to deploy an IP NGN network in support of multimedia services. The generation of voice quality scoring in near real-time is somewhat of a unique capability that may prove to be a good product differentiator in some network applications, if it does not come at too high a cost in terms of system resources.

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Competitive Positives and Concerns

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