In a bold move that will help it to take ownership of its communication services and offer enterprise and service provider customers a broader range of solutions, South African carrier Centracom has purchased its own softswitch. The company has chosen the PortaSwitch from PortaOne (News - Alert) to offer next-generation VoIP services as well as a host of other communications and related features to customers.
Centracom maintains partnerships with a number of VoIP and IT service providers and the company’s business model is centered on providing low cost services with a high quality of service. Particularly because the company also serves SMEs and call centers, owning a softswitch will enable the carrier to maintain better control over operations and services while meeting demands from business customers for a broader range of communications solutions.
"Our primary needs were for a tried and tested system, built with leading technology, which would cover both our billing and switching functions,” said Michael Aitken, managing director of Centracom. “The only solution we found that could satisfy these and every other requirement we had was PortaSwitch."
The company was also looking for flexibility to scale and grow both its customer base and service offerings, and they wanted a central point to manage all network and billing functions for VoIP customers. PortaSwitch handles those tasks as well as providing billing for Centracom’s new Cloud Solution and Connectivity offerings.
The Class 4/5 SIP softswitch features integrated media applications as well as billing and provisioning tailored to both retail and wholesale users. Customers may easily manage a variety of telecom services like hosted IP PBX (News - Alert) or IP Centrex solutions, as well as value-added features like audio and videoconferencing.
Ultimately, the softswitch enables Centracom to offer new communications solutions that enterprise users are increasingly demanding, at affordable prices. These include cloud-based video recording, voice and call logging and TMS, and the provider also offers a Random Number Generator solution.
Edited by Alisen Downey