There is good financial news out there for session border controller expert Acme Packet (News - Alert). The company’s stock ticked upward last week, helped, it seems, but an upgrade from industry analysts.

Acme Packet’s stock closed up 12 percent last Friday, not long after analysts at Stifel Nicolaus (News - Alert) gave the company a vote of confidence. The firm upgraded Acme Packet’s status from “hold” to “buy” as one analyst, Snajiv Wadhwani moved up his estimates for revenue and earnings, citing potential gains from rollout of VoLTE.

Recently, Acme Packet has been affected by delays in the rollout of VoLTE by various national carriers. Many predict that 2013 will be the year of VoLTE and Stifel Nicolaus expects this new technology to create a windfall for Acme Packet. Its sales could be upwards of $303 million this year, which would translate to earnings of 51 cents per share. This helped boost the stock’s price to $24 last week.

In the third quarter of 2012, Acme Packet ended up with $363.5 million in cash, equivalents and short term investments, and had no debt. It achieved revenue of $203.7 million, though revenue fell about $3.2 million from the previous year. These numbers would put the company on track to earn approximately $270 million for the 12-month period, marking about a $5 million drop all told. Acme Packet is valued at about $1.61 billion.

The past year was not an easy one for Acme Packet shareholders, as the stock fluctuated wildly, reaching a high of $36 per share and dropping to a low of $15 per share.

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