TAZZ TARGETING NEW SERVICE POLICIES

Tazz Networks this week will unveil a Subscriber Control Platform that combines policy-based application development with infrastructure and the operations and business systems used to support the services. Additionally, the company will announce that U.K.-based BT is its first customer.

While leveraging carriers' IP networks and subscriber bases, the platform allows service providers to create what Tazz calls a consistent and organized abstraction layer — or the Service Control Layer. For example, a carrier could create a new managed IP service quickly while also providing users with a better view into the network than they once had.

“If enterprises are going to buy managed services from carriers, they need to have some sense of control,” said Dan Lowe, president and CEO of Tazz.

Among the biggest simplifications to the platform is a visual network application design studio that allows developers to drag-and-drop services, create policy and rules, personalize portal generation and create life cycle service management. BT will use the platform to define and develop their next phase of policy-enabled network infrastructure.

For Tazz, the BT contract win was especially gratifying in light of the current carrier-spending environment. “We proved that little Tazz can go get a large service provider, and that they would buy from us,” Lowe said.

In the U.S., Tazz said it would announce in a few weeks a customer deal with a large equipment provider, but declined to name to the company at this time.