Astracon shoots at three targets

ATLANTA--With release 3.0 of its Connection Manager activation platform, Astracon added three new solutions to its portfolio: WholesaleConnect, RetailConnect and BusinessConnect. The company also entered a partnership with Orchestream to develop joint solutions by integrating their products.

Astracon’s RetailConnect serves the consumer, small business and small office/home office (SOHO) markets with activation solutions for DSL, wireless and cable. Scalability features added in the new release have helped Astracon help Verizon approach its 1 millionth DSL subscriber, said Stan Zoltek, director of systems engineering at Verizon.

"When you scale to Verizon size with activation, that’s a big deal," said Chun-Ling Woon, vice president of marketing for Astracon. "And it’s not just about performance gain, it’s also about monitoring and reporting."

The WholesaleConnect solution is aimed at service providers that supply bandwidth to the carrier-to-carrier market. It provides SLA management while activating services for ATM, frame relay, SONET/SDH, PDH, DWDM and other multi-technology networks.

BusinessConnect addresses the activation requirements of the large enterprise market for the same type networks plus IP virtual private networks.

Astracon’s relationship with Orchestream helps both companies offer service delivery based on quality of service and service level parameters. Solutions will combine Orchestream's expertise in service activation for customer premise equipment with Astracon’s core network solutions.

You can’t just do a demarc and have separate management systems on the customer side," Woon said.
Tim McElligott is senior editor for Telephony. He can be reached at tmcelligott@intertec.com.