Acme Packet Inc. (Nasdaq: APKT) introduced its Net-Net Session Router (SR), a session routing proxy yesterday, along with an ecosystem of companies that plan to use its session routing database products and services. (See Acme Embraces OSR.)

Using the SR and Acme's session border controllers (SBCs), carriers can query customer databases using protocols such as ENUM, SIP, and DNS. Dynamic routing decisions are then made within the core IP network, centralizing and consolidating signaling control while reducing costs.

The SR "enables all the different elements in a network involved in establishing SIP sessions to talk to a single entity, as opposed to needing to converse with every other SIP device in the network," writes Current Analysis analyst Joe McGarvey in an email to Light Reading.

Acme is positioning the SR as more efficient at signaling control than softswitches. That's because the SR is designed to handle stateless portions of the signaling session.

"The SR is able to release resources as soon as a transaction is done, as opposed to waiting for a session to terminate between releasing resources," McGarvey writes. "So, in addition to the SR taking a lot of the workload off of softswitches, it also works more efficiently than a softswitch."

According to Acme Packet director of marketing Kevin Mitchell, openness is also a key component to prospective SR customers. Because it is able to route based on standard protocols, Mitchell says it contrasts with "closed, monolithic class 4 softswitches currently in service provider networks."

Acme believes this capability will be vital to service providers as they scale up and consolidate fixed and mobile networks.

The company is also hoping to foster better network communications among carriers with the OSR platform. In addition to more efficient routing within wireless and wireline networks, the SR is designed to facilitate routing between networks.

At the heart of this is the OSR ecosystem, which includes NetNumber Inc. , Nominum Inc. , Neustar Inc. (NYSE: NSR), Stealth Communications Inc. , Telcordia Technologies Inc. , TransNexus Inc. , Vero Systems Inc. , and XConnect Global Networks Ltd.

McGarvey writes that the ecosystem is important because "it allows Acme Packet to offer carriers access to multiple routing engine products and databases, which will allow those carriers to leverage a wide range of databases and resources for finding the best and least expensive route across a network or between networks."

— Ryan Lawler, Reporter, Light Reading