Santera wins RUS listing, rolls out rural products

Hoping to spur interest in the increasingly competitive market for next generation switching in the rural sector, Santera announced this week it has developed two new products specifically for small telcos. At the same time, the Plano, Texas-based company, which recently was acquired by Tekelec, said its SanteraOne switch has been put on the approved switch list for those carriers qualifying for low-interest financing from the Rural Utilities Service.

The first of the two new products, the SanteraOne RS, is essentially the same as the flagship product but is scaled down with a smaller media gateway. The platform, which is scheduled to start shipping by the end of the year, also provides the same functionality as the larger switch.

“The difference is literally two cards,” said Tricia Nelson, director of product marketing for Santera. “We’ve taken the control module and the service matrix card and downsized. It runs the same software, but by reducing the number of TDM ports, it reduces the cost.”

The second product, the SanteraOne ESA, is an emergency backup softswitch that gives carriers with remote systems the ability to continue carrying traffic in cases of a fiber cut between the host and the remote systems. In the case of a fiber cut, the switch would continue providing local switch service as well as access to 911. Access to SS7 networks, though, would be cut off.

Both products will be listed by RUS when available. For its SanteraOne switch, the company ran a trial with Kerman Telephone in Kerman, Calif.

Santera is delving further into an increasingly crowded market. With many large vendors slowing their rollouts of packet-switching technology, competitors like CopperCom, Telica and MetaSwitch have been pushing hard for independent telco wins. Santera will target specialty engineering firms, use its relationship with Sprint North Supply and have a small direct sales force, said Nelson. Having Tekelec as a parent also will help.

“This is a very important market to go after but it’s not the only market for us,” she said, noting that Tekelec gives the company a strong international presence.