Metaswitch Networks confirmed Tiscali as the first customer for its Clearwater Core, an implementation of IMS built for the cloud using Web development methods to provide voice, video and messaging services. Tiscali has successfully built on Clearwater Core and Perimeta Session Border Controller (SBC) as part of its innovative Indoona over-the-top (OTT) application.
Tiscali’s Indoona application gives users access to a unique social network designed for smartphones. It allows users to publish posts up to 3,000 characters, share photos, audio or video files and much more. The application offers users 100 minutes per month of free calls to Western Europe, Canada, China and the U.S.
Metaswitch said the deployment of its Clearwater Core marks an important step toward network functions virtualization (NFV) for Tiscali, and also helps validate its own “software telco” strategy, which asserts that communications networks are transitioning to a cloud-based, software-centric, all-IP future.
Clearwater Core combines the economics of OTT-style service platforms with the standards compliance and reliability expected of telco-grade communications network solutions. The Web-services-oriented design inherent to Clearwater Core makes it ideal for instantiation within NFV environments as a virtualized network function (VNF).
“A network functions virtualization infrastructure (NFVI) is the perfect environment in which to construct, test, deploy and scale innovative network functions. We’re pleased that Tiscali chose Metaswitch’s NFV expertise to help it grow Indoona while providing telco-grade reliability,” says Dave Reekie, general manager of Metaswitch’s open source and security/interconnect business units. “We’re confident that as the Indoona service continues to scale and evolve and become more popular with consumers, Metaswitch will be right there helping Tiscali promote the rapid innovation of new services.”
“Our customer demand is growing rapidly and Metaswitch is helping us meet the needs of our customers quickly and easily,” says Tiscali CTO Andrea Podda. “Metaswitch’s Clearwater and Perimeta products are helping Tiscali achieve its goal of operating a modern, intelligent future-proof network in Italy, in turn delivering high-quality services to our customers.”
- In February 2014, Metaswitch introduced Clearwater Core, a software subscription service capable of delivering voice, video and messaging services to millions of users. The company said its Clearwater Core provides a foundation for complete wireline and wireless IP communications while effectively removing the typical cost barriers to deploying IMS-centric Voice over LTE (VoLTE) and Rich Communications Services (RCS). This enables network operators to leverage their standard compute resources while incurring a minimal software subscription fee based on the number of virtual CPU cores utilized. The IMS core implementation, which is fully supported by Metaswitch with custom engineering, bespoke professional services and consultancy, could be run within network functions virtualization (NFV) environments as a virtualized network function (VNF).
“NFV has far-reaching effects in communications networks and this new approach to building networks will provide numerous benefits to network operators, including reductions in both capital and operating costs and the promotion of rapid innovation in the services space,” says Dave Reekie, general manager of Metaswitch’s open source business unit.
