QUEBEC -- EXFO Electro-Optical Engineering Inc. (NASDAQ: EXFO, TSX: EXF) announced today that two carriers located in the EMEA region (Europe, Middle East and Africa) have selected its Network Quality Monitoring System (NQMS) solution for their nation-wide surveillance needs of voice-over-Internet Protocol (VoIP) and voice-band services.

Based on EXFO’s open and highly scalable NQMSTM test platform, these turnkey projects involve the deployment of hardware, software as well as services for installation, training and ongoing support and maintenance. The NQMSvoice solution enables network operators and service providers to assess quality of service (QoS) of telecommunications networks from end to end. NQMSvoice monitors traditional (circuit-switched) and next-generation (packet-switched) networks, which makes it ideally suited for VoIP applications and, in the most common case, hybrid networks in which both legacy voice services and VoIP will co-exist for many years.

Automated measurements can be scheduled from one or more central locations, providing valuable information over time about the performance of a network under surveillance. Through predetermined test thresholds, NQMSvoice ensures that service level agreements (SLAs) are upheld. The monitoring system’s predictive capabilities can help prevent failures before they occur. Alerts are triggered and automatically processed under specific, user-definable circumstances such as when network resources are reaching their limits.

NQMSvoice is a very powerful and sophisticated, yet user-friendly system. Built-in alarm management and fault-handling capabilities support automatic problem escalation as well as trouble ticketing for systematic fault resolution. Among other testing capabilities, the system offers voice-quality testing capabilities based on automated, mean opinion score (MOS) measurements of speech and conversation quality.

With its distributed architecture, robust server platform and intelligent probes strategically deployed across a network, NQMS represents a QoS monitoring solution offering unmatched scalability and performance.

The NQMSvoice solution had initially been developed by Consultronics, which was recently acquired by EXFO.

“We are pleased to obtain these two contracts for our best-of-breed QoS monitoring solution,” said Etienne Gagnon, EXFO’s Vice-President of Optical and Protocol Product Management. “These deals were made easier under the EXFO umbrella, given our stronger brand recognition and larger sales capabilities that we brought to the acquisition.”

EXFO (Nasdaq: EXFO; Toronto: EXF)