Neuf Cegetel, the French Leading Alternative Carrier, Selects NexTone Products for the Development of New Wholesale Services

Neuf Cegetel, the French Leading Alternative Carrier, Selects NexTone Products for the Development of New Wholesale Services

NexTone®, a leader in session border controllers and scalable session management solutions for VoIP, multimedia, and IMS network interconnects, today announced that Neuf Cegetel, one of the world’s top international carriers, has deployed the NexTone Multiprotocol Session Exchange (MSX) and NexTone Real-time Session Manager (RSM), part of NexTone’s IntelliConnect® System, throughout its network. Neuf Cegetel will use NexTone’s products to offer its wholesale customers new services and develop international business opportunities.

Neuf Cegetel has the leading alternative long-distance network in France and the most extensive alternative broadband network; it has deployed 45,000 km of optical fiber cable and covers nearly 70 percent of the population. The company faced a challenge in developing international business opportunities with quick IP interconnections to customers. Neuf Cegetel also wanted to leverage the full potential for convergence of fixed-line and mobile phones, PCs, and TV sets over its IP network. After evaluating several options, the company selected the NexTone MSX and RSM because the products met Neuf Cegetel’s needs. In addition, the MSX and RSM offered improved time to market, more flexibility for international interconnections, and a dynamic Least Cost Routing (LCR) function.

“Neuf Cegetel’s culture is based on an innovation-led strategy, and NexTone’s products fit perfectly into that strategy,” said Paul Zenou, wholesale director for Neuf Cegetel. “As a rapidly growing company that is looking to leverage the full potential of convergence and other advanced services on an international scale, Neuf Cegetel needs solutions that it can deploy quickly and that will support an expanding range of services; NexTone fits this need.”

The MSX and RSM products will also help Neuf Cegetel open up new IP interconnections and reach new national and international carrier customers. In addition, now that the products have been deployed, the company can now offer new services to the wholesale market, including IP interconnection and pre-paid services. In the future, the NexTone MSX and RSM will help Neuf Cegetel develop LCR IP services. The multiple IP interconnections and greater flexibility in international routing enabled by NexTone will also help Neuf Cegetel develop its international voice trading and IP-to-IP routing.

“Our relationship with Neuf Cegetel is yet another proof-point of the power of NexTone’s industry-leading IntelliConnect solution for wholesale VoIP applications,” said Victor Bozzo, vice president of worldwide sales for NexTone. “NexTone’s IntelliConnect System is designed to provide leading carriers like Neuf Cegetel a flexible platform through which to offer innovative services. We look forward to working with Neuf Cegetel as it continues to expand the sales and revenues it realizes from its industry-leading IP network.”

Neuf Cegetel offers a broad range of quadruple-play services to the residential market and multi-service solutions to enterprises. The company also provisions network capacity to third-party carriers and ISPs on a wholesale basis. In France, it is the leading alternative operator in the provision of unbundled DSL access line, transport and collection of voice and data, and call termination to other ISPs and carriers. Telegeography ranked Neuf Cegetel as the 10th largest international voice traffic carrier in 2007. More than 200 French and international carrier customers use the company’s network, and third-party operators are served by more than one million DSL access lines.