Minacom gets a promise from Primus

Primus Telecommunications last week became the first customer to license two service assurance applications from operations support systems service and technology company Minacom International Inc. DirectQuality and DirectTest enable Primus to improve operating results by simplifying service assurance for the management of complex, multidomain, multinational networks.

"They were looking for a solution and we went after them," said Steven Murphy, president of sales and marketing operations for Minacom. "They had already looked at the competition, and we came in with a solution they could deploy as a near-end solution."

Rodger Swedenburg, manager of voice transmission engineering for Primus, was responsible for finding test equipment or a central monitoring system that would offer overall network testing. He found seven vendors that could fill the role, but narrowed it down to three, one of which was Minacom.

"The company stands out," said Swedenburg. "The system is easy to operate, and one can schedule tests without human intervention." The Minacom system can perform four of the seven tests for Primus, Swedenburg said, adding that he is pushing for the company to develop more applications to test other products.

For now, Minacom is allowing Primus to control intrusive and non-intrusive testing as a way to maintain its service level agreements with customers requesting an international private line.

"[This agreement] captures the essence of products that can push data to the customer. It is a weapon against the competition," said Michel Nadeau, chairman, president and CEO of Minacom.

The products offer cross-vendor and domain functionality, as well as a way for network service providers to improve operating results while strengthening customer loyalty by managing the service assurance of complex multidomain networks.