Sunday, May 13, 2007

GENBAND to Spin Out Taqua for Class 5 Replacement Switch

GENBAND will spin out its "Taqua" T7000 product family to the leadership team responsible for developing and managing the product, Many of the new management and employees have been affiliated with Taqua since its inception in 1999.



"We are confident that the Taqua management team and its employees have the sufficient depth to effectively operate and grow the Taqua business, which has been our primary focus for this transaction," said Charles Vogt, president and CEO of GENBAND.



GENBAND will focus on its IP gateway and application solutions.



Founded in 1998, Taqua developed a next-generation Class 5 switch -- the Taqua 7000 Switching System (T7000), and claims over 250 deployments at incumbent and competitive carriers in North America. The T7000 features a "switch-on-a-card" design that performs all of the functions required of a Class 4/5 switch, thereby significantly increasing reliability and simplifying implementation. The T7000 can be used in Enhanced VoIP, Intelligent Gateway, Class 4/5 Transition, Triple Play and/or Cable Telephony applications. It supports a wide variety of protocols including SS7, SIP, MGCP, GR-303, CAS, NCS, PRI and others over line, trunk or IP interfaces.

http://www.genband.com

http://www.taqua.com

  • In March 2007, GENBAND agreed to acquire Tekelec's Switching Solutions Group (SSG). The deal was structured as a sale of Tekelec's equity interests in Santera Systems and Taqua, and the SSG business assets held by Tekelec in exchange for a 19.9% common equity interest in GENBAND, $1.0 million in cash and GENBAND's assumption of certain SSG liabilities.


  • In October 2006, GENBAND acquired Siemens Networks' DCO (Digital Central Office) circuit-switch business and has exclusively licensed other technology, enabling GENBAND to provide open interfaces for next generation network solutions to both the DCO and the Siemens North American EWSD installed base.


  • In September 2004, General Bandwidth named Charlie Vogt as its new president and CEO. Vogt previously served as President and CEO of Taqua, a supplier of a Class 5 softswitch. Charlie was part of the executive management team with Santera Systems, a Plano, Texas-based developer of a next-generation voice switching technology that was acquired by Tekelec.