MetaSwitch, TI Enhance VOIP

LAS VEGAS and DALLAS -- Addressing one of the key subscriber issues affecting VoIP adoption today, MetaSwitch has selected standards-based voice quality analysis technology from Texas Instruments (NYSE: TXN - News; TI) for its media gateway products. This analysis technology will enhance the network monitoring capabilities of its MetaView network management system. With the addition of this proactive monitoring and reporting feature across MetaSwitch's entire media gateway product line, service provider networks will be alerted to potential call quality issues -- even while the call is still connected. This real-time feature will allow service providers to more dynamically address a wide range of network problems, resulting in users experiencing greater overall satisfaction with their voice service.

According to Yankee Group research, the quality of VoIP service is a key determinant to the technology's long term success, and is one of the top three reasons users change providers. The research also reports that the ability to effectively discover and repair problems will impact each VoIP provider's operational expenditures, and their ability to keep both consumer and business subscribers from churning to another service. Similarly, a recent report by Keynote Research notes that VoIP quality from cable and VoIP service providers still largely trails the quality of fixed line voice.

Introduced in January 2008, the MetaView network management system enabled carriers to monitor the health of the entire VoIP network, with real-time statistics superimposed on a graphical display of the network topology. In that first release, these statistics included packet loss, delay, and jitter. The addition of TI's quality management technology in every MetaSwitch gateway will enable additional standards-based statistics such as estimated mean opinion score (MOS) to be provided.

"We strongly believe in delivering quality products to the VoIP marketplace, not only in the implementation of the media gateway itself, but also in the ability to proactively monitor the total service," said Mike Evans, Vice President of System Architecture at MetaSwitch. "MetaView's voice quality monitoring from each and every gateway provides operators with an unsurpassed capability, never before experienced."

Metaswitch Networks