Subject: [NEXTEL-1] Vendors Unite For Mobile VOIP

From: Marcelrf <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 01 Mar 2004 09:13:51 -0500

02 | 25 | 04 |

Vendors Unite For Mobile VOIP

Cannes, France -- 3GSM -- The battle is heating up to deliver VOIP
systems to the world's
mobile operators, with major next-gen infrastructure players pairing up
to seduce the wireless
carriers with a combination of softswitches and gateways.

And for those mobile operators considering how to plan the transition
from circuit to packet
voice transport, such partnerships must seem like a London bus -- you
wait for ages for one
to come along, and then two arrive at the same time (see Motorola Pairs
With Sonus and
Lucent, Cisco Hook Up).

First off the blocks were Motorola Inc. (NYSE: MOT) and Sonus Networks
Inc. (Nasdaq:
SONS). Yesterday, they announced an OEM deal that will see Sonus's
GSX9000 gateway
pre-integrated with Motorola's SoftSwitch. Although Sonus has its own
softswitch, the deal
with Motorola gives it an inside track with wireless operators (see
Motorola Pairs With Sonus).

The Sonus media gateway would sit towards the edge of the network,
between the mobile
switching center and an IP backbone to provide the interface between the
circuit-switched
and packet networks, while the softswitch can be located anywhere on the
IP network to
provide call management functions.

The new combo is not currently deployed by any mobile operators.

If that pair thought they'd be stealing the VOIP system limelight in
Cannes, they were wrong,
as Cisco Systems Inc. (Nasdaq: CSCO) and Lucent Technologies Inc. (NYSE:
LU) announced
their engagement only hours later.

This pairing involves the combination of Lucent's softswitch and Cisco's
MGX 8000 media
gateway, an ATM multiservice switch that aggregates radio access traffic
and transports
voice traffic over IP and ATM networks. The announcement is, in essence,
a reminder that the
two companies are jointly targeting mobile operators, as they announced
a three-year deal to
this effect last January (see Lucent & Cisco: Together at Last).

Lucent has changed tack a couple of times on its softswitch strategy,
which has led to
speculation that it might need to find a partner or even acquire a
company like Sonus to
improve its position in the VOIP market (see Russo's VOIP Spin Confounds
and Is Lucent
Sounding Out Sonus? ).

Such speculation was probably not on the minds of Lucent executives last
night, however, as
the company splashed some of its marketing budget on a party in Cannes.
The star attraction?
Lionel Richie (soooooooo 1970s). Never mind help in the VOIP market;
Lucent is in serious
need of advice for its corporate entertainment strategy. Haven't these
people heard of The
Darkness?

— Ray Le Maistre, International Editor, Boardwatch
http://www.boardwatch.com/document.asp?doc_id=48226

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