VoIP Routers

MetroPCS is not what springs to mind for most people when thinking about mobile phones. They're number five in the market, after all, which has many focused on bigger names such as AT&T and Verizon (News - Alert). The company’s recent move, however, should turn some heads, as they announced earlier today that they have brought in Acme Packet's Net-Net Session Director to bring out some major new features in communications.

With the Acme Packet (News - Alert) Net-Net Session Director in place, MetroPCS now has the ability to better support what is the world's first voice over LTE (News - Alert) (VoLTE) service, which they launched back in August. The Acme Packet system also allows for extra support of MetroPCS' rich communication services (RCS) features as well.

More specifically, the Acme Packet Net-Net Session Director supports these two major facets via a series of additional capabilities commonly found with session initiation protocol (SIP) services like SIP normalization and interworking functions. This in turn allows operators to more readily get the network elements offered by various vendors together and firing on the same page.

Moreover, since the Net-Net Session Director protects and controls SIP sessions staged between MetroPCS' core and the various LTE endpoints – as well as what are known as Proxy Call Session Control Functions (P-CSCF) in the network. The Net-Net Session Director will even provide a little extra shot of security by controlling the flow of connections to better protect against denial-of-service, as well as enhancing reliability by protection against overloads that don't have a malicious component involved.

But what's the bottom line for MetroPCS? Putting the Net-Net Session Director in place gives them a lot of distinct advantages that they can pass on to their customers, like a more rapid rollout of certain services related to RCS and VoLTE, including voice over Wi-Fi. They can better keep costs down thanks to a versatile platform that works readily with several different vendors' products. They can even bring in multimedia communications capabilities with the support they now have for IMS-based solutions.

It may be a bit hard to believe that bringing in just one new product can provide so much benefit; new and better services to better compete in the market, reduced costs to bring those services out, and so on, but that's just what MetroPCS is looking at thanks to the use of Acme Packet's Net-Net Session Director. While it will likely take some time to see the full range of effects that MetroPCS gets out of their now-deepening relationship with Acme Packet, there are more than enough potential bits of good news to make the whole thing well worth noticing.

In related VoIP news, Patton (News - Alert) Electronics recently revealed its all-new customer service support system, including its new platinum-level Premium Support and platinum-plus Premium 24/7 Support services, which take the company’s already unparalleled gold-standard free support to an unbelievable new level. Already offering free lifetime technical support is rare in itself, but by working with Patton-Inalp (Switzerland), Patton Electronics (USA) is extending its lifetime technical support with global 24x7 coverage – something that is even rarer in the electronic-telecommunications industry.

To learn more about Patton’s new levels of customer support, click here.

Want to learn more about the latest in communications and technology? Then be sure to attend ITEXPO Miami 2013, Jan 29- Feb. 1 in Miami, Florida.  Stay in touch with everything happening at ITEXPO (News - Alert). Follow us on Twitter.