Empirix Announces Acquisition of Mutina Technology

By Alice Straight, TMCnet Web Editor

Empirix (News - Alert) Inc., the market leader of service quality assurance solutions for new IP communications, announced it has acquired privately held Mutina Technology S.p.A., an Italy-based provider of monitoring surveillance and analysis technologies for Mobile Broadband (MBB), Next Generation Networks (NGN), SS7/Sigtran Signaling, VoD/IPTV (News - Alert), and IP Core for Telecom and Enterprise Networks.

"As service providers move quickly towards LTE networks, there is a need to monitor increasingly large amounts of voice, video, and data across all access networks," said John D'Anna, CEO of Empirix. "The acquisition of Mutina strengthens Empirix's position in the global service assurance market serving converged service providers.  It allows us to expand our leadership position in the North America NGN monitoring market into the rest of the world as well as the mobile voice and data markets.  Now, only Empirix can offer this high bandwidth, comprehensive view all within a single platform, giving customers the benefits of ease-of-use, lowered costs and faster time-to-market as they scale their services. In addition to solidifying our position in the mobile marketplace, the acquisition of Mutina also firmly establishes Empirix as a leading presence in EMEA and Asia Pacific."

The acquisition of Mutina strategically expands Empirix's product line for the monitoring of mobile networks and extends the Company's presence in EMEA and Asia Pacific. The terms of the acquisition are not being disclosed by Empirix or Mutina.

The Mutina acquisition also enables Empirix to offer quad play providers a service assurance solution that offers a full end-to-end view of their networks. The merging of these technologies results in a single, easy to use application for the analysis of control, user and data transmission plane information. 

The combination of Empirix's industry leading Hammer XMS solution for IMS, VoIP and SS7 networks with the IPXPlorer system from Mutina delivers cutting-edge solutions for mobile broadband, video and data -- representing a truly comprehensive approach for all types of converged network operators.  In addition, Mutina's innovative, hand-held device will enable technicians to bring the combination of these technologies out into the field to provide real-time service quality.  Currently, Mutina's portfolio is available as standalone products and work to tightly integrate these offerings into Empirix's Hammer XMS platform is underway.

"Empirix is recognized as one of the most innovative players in the service assurance market," said Franco Messori, president of Mutina Technologies. "Combining Empirix's Hammer technology with Mutina's IP core that is extended to mobile broadband and legacy SS7 technology, and VoD/IPTV enhances Empirix's offerings to global service providers and partners."

Empirix and Mutina bring a common architectural approach to the monitoring challenges of mobile and fixed networks. Both companies deploy software and custom hardware designed for high bandwidth IP with the flexibility of supporting legacy SS7/C7 signaling. The combined technology offers hardware platforms capable of monitoring up to 40GB of traffic per probe, providing real time analysis of IP services, user payload and network impairments.

In addition to products that can be embedded into networks, service providers are also demanding solutions that can be used on the road. Mutina designs and manufactures innovative portable hand-held protocol and service analyzers. For example, the IPXPlorer One and Two are the first portable 10GE, 1GE, and legacy interfaces able to capture and analyze in real-time giga-Ethernet traffic in a less than 3 KG package. This unique, hand-held platform will enable technicians to bring Empirix's leading edge technology into the field for service assurance and troubleshooting.

The Hammer XMS solution gives operators the ability to confidently introduce and monitor multiple IP-based elements and services. End-to-end correlation between TDM and IP domains is provided for mobile softswitches, helping carriers assure the quality of service over SIP-based trunks to the PSTN. Femto cell launches will go more smoothly as carriers will have the ability to monitor the quality of voice as traffic from femtocell is carried over the broadband network. Carriers can then assure a smooth integration of femtocell-based sessions into the core mobile network. Additionally, carriers will be able to more effectively enforce SLAs with lower cost IP interconnect partners.

(source: http://www.tmcnet.com/channels/voip-monitoring/articles/87499-empirix-announces-acquisition-mutina-technology.htm)