General Bandwidth raised $18 million in new financing for its VoIP equipment. General Bandwidth supplies its G6 Universal Media Gateway platform, which is a carrier class VoIP services platform with the capability to simultaneously support multiple service architectures including legacy Class 5 switches, SIP-based feature servers, and next generation softswitches. The platform is currently being used by more than 40 customers.
Oak Investment Partners led the new round with participation from Sevin Rosen, Venrock Associates, Invesco, Thomas Weisel Capital Partners, Trellis Partners, Star Ventures, Wheatley Partners, HLM, Protostar, Granite Global, Siemens Venture Capital and Texas Instruments. http://www.genband.com
- In February 2005, General Bandwidth introduced its G6 Reverse Media Gateway designed to enable legacy remote terminals, such as wireline Digital Loop Carriers (DLCs) and cable Host Digital Terminals (HDTs), to migrate from Class 5 call control to IP-based softswitch call control.
- General Bandwidth said remote terminals using GR-303, TR-08 or V5.2 circuit technology until now have been islands set apart with no effective means of connecting to the new IP-based features and benefits of packet switching technology. Wireline network DLCs and cable network HDTs connect to Class 5 switches over standard GR-303, TR-08 and V5.2 interfaces. With the G6 Reverse MG, these interfaces can be migrated to the G6 platform, using DS-1/E-1 or DS-3/STS-1 connections between the G6 and DLCs/HDTs.
- General Bandwidth, which supplies a VoIP Media Gateway, named Charlie Vogt as its new president and CEO. He replaces Brendon Mills, who is stepping down. Vogt previously served as President and CEO of Taqua, a supplier of a Class 5 softswitch. Charlie was part of the executive management team with Santera Systems, a Plano, Texas-based developer of a next-generation voice switching technology that was acquired by Tekelec. Prior to Taqua and Santera Systems, Vogt held senior management positions at Accelerated Networks, Ascend Communications, ADTRAN, Motorola and IBM.
- General Bandwidth raised over $180 million in its previous rounds.
- In April 2004, it was announced that Alcatel had invested US$15 million in General Bandwidth. The investment further strengthened the three-year OEM relationship between the two companies and allowed for additional development enhancements to their joint FTTP and VoIP offerings.