VoIP test solutions company Tektronix (News - Alert) launched on Monday a next-generation unified assurance platform designed to address the needs of multi-technology, multi-service fixed and wireless network operators. The company’s updated Unified Assurance for Converged Networks (UACN) solution offers end-to-end, service-level views supporting a variety of access and core network technologies.

 

Initially, Tektronix is focusing its new platform on voice service delivery using IP, next-generation networks. However, the solution’s framework is very extensible; future releases will include support for mobile, video, data and legacy services and networks.

 

Doug Dickerson, vice president and general manager at Tektronix’s network management division, said that service providers are now evolving how they monitor their networks, with a new focus on element and alarm management. UACN was designed in response.

 

“As they make this transition, service providers are dealing with tremendous complexity. They have services that run across multiple networks, including converged IP networks, and they need visibility from one end to the other,” Dickerson explained in a statement.  “With UACN, we have taken an innovative and proactive approach to meeting service providers' evolving performance monitoring and management needs.”

 

Dickerson added: “We will continue to evolve UACN to match our customers' changing needs for managing next generation networks and advanced services to help them differentiate themselves.”

 

Given the competitiveness of today’s communication market, it’s hardly surprising that operators are finding they need to provide personalized, value-added services to stay in the game. This demand must be balanced, though, against the need to reduce operating costs and effectively manage capital expenditures.

 

UACN addresses this dynamic, too. Operators can use the platform’s flexibility and scalability to design monitoring schemes that provide real-time visibility into how services perform, the level of quality perceived by the customer, and how customer respond to new offerings.

 

Two of the new tools included with UACN are:

 

Orion Service Assurance for Voice Services – Lets operators measure, in real-time, the performance of voice services delivered to customers. This includes tracking performance trends over time for specific markets.

 

Interconnect Services Module – Expands visibility of voice service performance to include calls transiting in or out of the operator’s IP, next-generation networks. Lets operators keep track of how their interconnect partners are performing.

 

Other features new to UACN include:

All of these features are presented in a customizable graphical user interface with a complete set of service-specific performance indicators.

 

To learn more about UACN, and Tektronix’s VoIP test solutions, stop by the company’s booth (#6443) at NXTcomm (News - Alert) (June 18-21, 2007). Even more information can be found on Tektronix’s TMCnet.com channel, VoIP Test Solutions.

 

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