In the Jetstream

With a voice-over-digital subscriber line solution ready for roll out, Jetstream Communications is making a lot of friends in the industry. Rival vendors and carriers alike spent much of Supercomm last week staking their claim to relationships with Jetstream.

The less than year-old start-up vendor of voice gateways and integrated access devices (IADS), announced several partnerships, OEM agreements and investments for its voice-over-DSL solutions. Jetstream managed to simultaneously land OEM agreements with both Nortel Networks, which has a less than 10% stake in Jetstream, and Alcatel. Jetstream's CPX-1000 Voice Gateway and IADs will be used by both companies.

Jetstream also announced partnerships with Nokia, Copper Mountain, Promatory, Cabletron and Flowpoint.

Jetstream's voice-over-DSL technology is compatible with both asynchronous transfer mode and frame-based DSL access networks, said Ken Kolderup, vice president of marketing for Jetstream. It also lets carriers offer up to 16 telephone lines and continuous high-speed Internet and remote LAN access over one copper pair.

The partnership and OEM wins are a watershed event for the company, Kolderup said. "Alcatel has a huge base of [incumbent local exchange carrier] business and they will enable us to get into [regional Bell operating companies], when we most likely would not have been able to achieve those wins with a company of our size," he said. "We see Nortel getting us into the larger competitive providers, too."

Alcatel's strong relationships with major carriers, addressing the small business market, will present a substantial opportunity for Jetstream, said Claudia Bacco, a senior DSL analyst at TeleChoice.

MCI WorldCom, which invested around $25 million in Jetstream, recently completed a test of the solution, as did Covad Communications, said Kolderup. Covad, he noted, will also use CopperCom's similar voice-over-DSL solution.

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