Resources from Unified Communications

Broadvoice and Metaswitch Partner on NFV for Delivering Cloud UC Services

By Laura Stotler
TMCnet Contributing Editor

The unified communications (UC) market is truly evolving, and while many of the developments involve shiny new applications and services, the back end is making tremendous progress as well. The recently announced partnership between hosted UC provider Broadvoice and Metaswitch Networks illustrates the advancements happening on the networking and cloud side, particularly the adoption of network functions virtualization (NFV).

The companies are working together to provide hosted voice and data services using Metaswitch’s virtualized platform. Broadvoice is taking advantage of the platform to create a geo-redundant, multi-site solution that uses the MetaSphere Multiservice Telephony Application Server (MTAS) to provide cloud-based services. The result is a move toward a fully virtualized network for offering carrier-grade, real-time UC services – a revolutionary way of delivering enhanced communication offerings.

"With this further investment in Metaswitch's world-class technology and support services, we are doubling-down on our success to ensure that we are best positioned for taking advantage of NFV while securing our network against potential disasters, including earthquakes," said Jim Murphy, CEO of Broadvoice. "All of our hosted voice customers have been seamlessly migrated to the new platform, affording them unrivalled redundancy and reliability while giving us the ability to easily flex and scale our services to our customers' demands, at any location."

The migration to a virtualized network gives Broadvoice scalability, flexibility and cost savings, which the service provider can then pass along to its customers. The company is providing cloud PBX (News - Alert) services, business UC functionality and residential service solutions, all backed by multi-site redundancy and reliability. Metaswitch’s platform handles the call control, UC and contact center functions, while the Metaswitch Service Assurance Server provides deep network visibility and diagnostics. The platforms are split across multiple cloud locations to offer high availability and redundancy.

"This deployment really shows that NFV is ready for prime time," said Al Mitchell, senior vice president of engineering at Metaswitch Networks. "Innovative network operators like Broadvoice are working with our market leading virtual network functions to maintain leadership in a highly competitive business, offering dependable, differentiated and profitable services in the most cost-efficient manner."