Excel, MediaRing finish integration

SANTA CLARA, Calif.—Excel Switching at Voice on the Net today continued its migration out of the Lucent Technologies sphere of influence, announcing that it has completed interoperability testing with session controller vendor MediaRing and that MediaRing has joined its Interoperability and Innovations Program.

The two companies also will jointly offer Excel’s media gateways and media services combined with MediaRing’s session controllers.

"What we’re trying to do is really look at the leaders in each segment and work with them," said JC Murphy, president of Excel.

The company, which was bought by Lucent and re-spun out in the course of the past four years, has been generating about half of its revenue from carriers outside the U.S. with much of that coming from a partnership with Logica in the wireless market, Murphy said. That revenue percentage is expected to increase with Asian carriers showing strong buying signs.

In the U.S., carriers are taking a somewhat piecemeal approach to converting networks to IP platforms in part because the networks are so big, said Mike Twomey, vice president of marketing for Excel.

"What we’re seeing, more than people want to have wholesale changes to their network, is people wanting to take small bits of their networks and IP enabling it."