Kenetec secures first customer

(Telephony) Competitive carrier Eureka GGN today announced plans to utilize the convergent-network family of products offered by Kenetec, becoming the start-up vendor’s first customer for its multitenant unit (MTU) solution.

Based on the company’s services-oriented building area network (SBAN) architecture, Kenetec’s solution gives tenants access to large amounts of bandwidth—10 MB over copper or 100 MB over fiber—for converged voice, data and video services. For the service provider, the package costs about $3,000 per tenant, according to Nathan Kalowski, vice president of marketing for Kenetec.

“It uses the existing infrastructure, so no telephony equipment is thrown away—the end user can keep the same phones and PBXs,” Kalowski said. “It’s just a software upgrade.”

Eureka GGN, which trialed the Kenetec equipment in its headquarters in New York, will deploy the convergence solution in a 12-building pilot program in New York, according to Steve Camas, chief technology officer for Eureka GGN. The solution’s ability to offer revenue from data and voice is crucial to carriers, many of which have failed with data-only business models.

“If you go for voice and data with this type of equipment, it should be just over or under a year for payback,” Camas said.

Using “very conservative” estimates—including no revenue from the video capabilities afforded by the Kenetec solution—Eureka GGN projects to pay for its investment in the convergence system within 14 months.

Initially, Eureka GGN will deploy voice over ATM, but voice over IP may be in the carrier’s future, Camas said. Kenetec’s ability to support both voice platforms gives carriers the option to choose the best time to make such a transition, Kalowski said.

“You can implement voice over ATM and, when the time is right, you can easily migrate to voice over IP,” Kalowski said.

With just two pieces of hardware—the EdgeXpress 5300, a scalable aggregation device that resides at the hub of the MTU, and the EdgeXpress 1000, a service access unit located in subscribing tenants’ offices—initial installation is relatively simple, Kalowski said. And a Web-based interface allows building owners to adjust provisioning and order upgrades after the system is installed.