Comptel: CLEC Covista to deploy MetaSwitch

ORLANDO--Covista, a national CLEC in the process of converting its customers onto its own facilities, has chosen MetaSwitch to provide the next-generation infrastructure for its local and long-distance business.

Covista built its business, which now includes 200,000 subscribers, on a combination of its own switching facilities in three cities--Dallas, Minneapolis and Chattanooga, Tenn.--and UNE-P facilities it purchased from the Bell companies elsewhere. As part of its transition from UNE-P, the company is deploying MetaSwitch’s Class 4/5 distributed softswitch and UC9000 hosted IP applications platform to offer unified communications and IP Centrex.

Covista has been selling a bundle of local and long-distance services it termed KISS, for Keep It Simple and Save, throughout the eastern half of the U.S. Most of the company’s expertise is on the long-distance side, said Thomas Brinkman, senior director of strategic planning and regulatory for Covista, at a Comptel Fall Conference press breakfast.

“The piece we didn’t have was local facilities-based talent,” he said. “MetaSwitch came to the table for us with professional services, in addition to their technology, that were key for us. They had the architecture we were looking for also--this isn’t a switch that started as a Class 4 switch and tried to add line-side features. This was built as a Class 5 switch from the ground up.”

Brinkman’s long telecom history includes extensive time at GTE, where he was part of the GTD-5 Class 5 switch development, giving him a better-than-average awareness of switching architecture.

MetaSwitch is best known for its work with rural and independent telcos, but has been very active with CLECs as well, said CEO John Lazar. The company teamed with Cisco Systems to create the Secure IP Migration Platform for Local Exchange (SIMPLE) program for CLECs working hard to shed their dependence on leased lines from the Bell companies by moving to VoIP.

“Covista is a very big deployment for us,” Lazar said.

Covista has commercial agreements in place with the Bells so that it will continue to support its customers following the Federal Communications Commission’s March 2006 deadline for the end of enforced UNE-P sales. Because those commercial agreements impose higher costs for the UNE-P lines, however, Covista would like to convert its customers to the new architecture as quickly as possible, Brinkman said.

The company will focus first in areas where the commercial agreement costs create the most hardship, which is in the Southeast. According to Brinkman, BellSouth is charging $7 per residential line and $11 per line for businesses with more than four lines, compared to Verizon’s flat $5-a-line monthly fee for the first three years.

Covista has chosen to pay a slightly higher overall cost to retain the right to move its lines away from the Bells at any time, he added. The alternative is a five-year deal with lower surcharges.

“We have a huge base in New Jersey, near the international landings, and there are problems associated with converting so many lines that are physically far away,” Brinkman said. “Those will operate under a commercial agreement.”

MetaSwitch is “literally holding our hands through this whole process,” he said. “They have been instrumental in helping us through this.”