Integral Hops Through a Hoop

By boston.internet.com Staff
October 31, 2000

Integral Access Inc., a Chelmsford startup that sells systems allowing telecom carriers to offer data and voice services over a single line, announced that its product has earned a significant industry certification.

Integral's PurePacket Platform, which allows carriers to send voice, video, data, Internet and virtual private network services over one network, has been certified to operate with voice switches made by Lucent Technologies and Nortel Networks.

The company said it was the first multi-protocol platform to win such certification, meaning that it meets Lucent and Nortel standards and can connect with and transmit voice calls from its platform to their switches.

The announcement should go some distance to easing carriers' minds about the viability of Integral's product and allow it to get customers more easily.

PurePacket can also deliver voice service to "SoftSwitches," which are designed to help carriers migrate from traditional, circuit-switching networks to Internet protocol, packet-switching networks. "

The ability of the PurePacket platform to support traditional circuit-switched voice alongside packetized voice services over a single access infrastructure is a significant advance for carriers planning next-generation networks," said Frank Dzubeck, president of Communications Network Architects Inc.

Jason Jeffords, Integral's vice president of software engineering, called the certification "an important milestone" for the company.