Centigram doubles messaging capacity

Centigram Communications Corp., a wireless and wireline services provider, will announce today that it has doubled the platform size and port density of its Series 6 unified messaging platform, without increasing its footprint. The company will also announce that Sprint's local arm will spend $15 million to upgrade the system in its network.

The messaging system now can scale from four to 480 ports, offering service to up to 250,000 subscribers. This means that the platform can provide service to more subscribers from one location, said Punet Vatsayan, product manager for messaging and voice over IP for Centigram. "We wanted a scalable, reliable architecture," he said. "We wanted one box to do multiple things."

The Series 6 platform supports voice, fax and paging. It also offers a mailbox-on-demand application that will direct messages to users, a desktop product that allows users to create, play, answer and forward voice and fax messages, automated attendant capabilities, a "boomerang service," as well as management tools. It's an open system and uses industry-standard components, Vatsayan said.

Centigram recently sold off its customer premises equipment arm to Mitel in an effort to completely focus on creating solutions for service providers, said Carol Sorrick, vice president of marketing for the company.

This makes Centigram's thrust into unified messaging a good step into the service provider market, said Blair Pleasant, director of communications analysis for Raritan, N.J.-based Pelorus Group. Increasing the port density will be helpful as well, she said.

"Everyone's trying to do more with less space. Telcos don't want a million pieces of equipment in [central offices]," she said.

Sorrick said the messaging industry will soon surge, and that's why Centigram is focusing its efforts in this area. In addition to Sprint, Centigram has installed systems for carriers such as Alltel, Frontier and Bell Atlantic.