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Integra Crosses 50,000 Ports with Allied's iMAP, VoIP-Related Savings

By Vivek Naik, TMCnet Contributor

Allied Telesis, previously known as Allied Telesyn, has announced that Integra Telecom has surpassed 50,000 service ports with the aid of its integrated Multi-Access Platform.

 

“Our decision to partner with Allied Telesis (News - Alert) in 2006 has proved to be a good one as evidenced by the number of subscribers and states now supported on iMAP in our network,” said Craig Heidgerken, vice president of engineering services for Integra.

 

iMAP shouldn’t be confused with Internet Message Access Protocol that is also referred to as “IMAP.” iMAP Version 10.0 was released in September 2007, as reported by TMCnet, to enhance the VoIP features available in the iMAP chassis with native support for three-way calls on the current Plain Old Telephone Service 24 card in the last mile to eliminate the need for service providers to deploy adjunct conferencing hardware.

 

With this method, both capital and operating expenses are saved, and it permits service providers to reap the cost benefits of VoIP backhaul. In addition, analog telephone users can continue to use their existing equipment, with equivalent digital levels of functionality.

 

“Integra understands and utilizes the full spectrum of services and applications the iMAP offers,” said Bill Allen, vice president of sales and operations for Allied Telesis. “Most importantly, Integra has leveraged on the tremendous CapEx and OpEx advantages iMAP has to offer. Minimizing operational costs to serve business customers combined with streamlined provisioning protocols that enables rapid service roll-out, are key benefits of the iMAP platform.”

 

iMAP version 11.0 was released in 2008 November, reported TMCnet, to bolster the feature set for both fiber to the home and Triple Play (News - Alert) over copper deployments through bonding of Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line (ADSL) 2+ copper pairs by implementing G.Bond on the iMAP ADSL line cards.

 

The report added that with G.Bond, which is a method for transporting multiple DSL lines over select networks, separate copper pairs to the same subscriber can be bonded together via software. This capability increases the bandwidth levels that can support multiple HDTV streams, Video on Demand, VoIP and Internet traffic.

 

“We looked closely at what the market had to offer, and chose the Allied Telesis iMAP because we felt it was the best access platform that offered the combination of scalable chassis, copper and fiber service options, and offered zero-touch provisioning from a true Ethernet–based platform,” Heidgerken said.

 

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Vivek Naik is a contributing editor for TMCnet. To read more of Vivek's articles, please visit his columnist page.

Edited by Michael Dinan