RCN Selects General Bandwidth for PacketCable Voice over IP Deployments in Chicago Market
Austin, TX – August 17, 2004 – General Bandwidth, a leading Voice over IP equipment manufacturer enabling rapid deployment and new service revenue generation over broadband networks, announced today that RCN, a leading facilities-based competitive provider of bundled services, has deployed the General Bandwidth G6® VoIP Media Gateway in support of its Voice over IP (VoIP) service in its Chicago market.
Recently certified by CableLabs® as a PacketCableTM qualified media gateway, the G6 VoIP Media Gateway is being deployed by leading cable operators like RCN seeking to deliver unmatched VoIP voice quality and greater than 99.999% service availability. Built upon a fully redundant, custom-designed architecture, the G6 platform provides RCN with a highly scalable access media gateway which significantly reduces the equipment costs associated with deploying voice services across their network.
“RCN is committed to delivering high quality phone services as part of our bundled service offerings,” said Rick Rioboli, Senior Vice President of Marketing and Product. “With the addition of General Bandwidth’s carrier class gateways to our state-of-the-art network in Chicago, we now control the entire customer experience for our VoIP customers, giving our customers greater choice and values in telecommunications services.”
Customer response to RCN’s new VoIP service has been terrific, with more than 1,000 customers to date and additions of more than 30 new customers per day. With the upgrade expected to be completed by the end of October, RCN’s new VoIP service will be available to their entire Chicago footprint of approximately 300,000 homes which currently serves approximately 100,000 customers.
“General Bandwidth is focused on delivering the highest quality VoIP solutions to leading bundled service providers like RCN who are seeking true carrier grade performance and high VoIP quality of service,” said Brendon Mills, President and CEO of General Bandwidth. “We are pleased to be working with RCN as they begin to rollout VoIP services to their valued customer base.”
About RCN Corporation
RCN Corporation (Pink Sheets: RCNCQ) is the nation’s first and largest facilities-based competitive provider of bundled phone, cable and high speed internet services delivered over its own fiber-optic local network to consumers in the most densely populated markets in the U.S. RCN provides service in the Boston, New York, Eastern Pennsylvania, Chicago, San Francisco and Los Angeles metropolitan markets. RCN also holds a 50% LLC membership interest in Starpower, which serves the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area.
About General Bandwidth
General Bandwidth provides “Solutions for a VoIP WorldTM” with deployments across more than 41 domestic and international customers while enabling applications such as PacketCable™ cable telephony, VoIP Business Services, and SIP-based IP Centrex. General Bandwidth’s flagship product, the PacketCable qualified G6® VoIP Media Gateway, delivers high quality, full-featured voice services over a wide variety of packet architectures, including hybrid fiber coax (HFC), FTTP, DSL, and T1. With the capability to simultaneously support voice services from next generation softswitches and Class 5 switches, the G6 platform is a highly scalable, fully redundant, and very flexible service migration platform from which new voice and media features can be deployed.
Contact:
General Bandwidth
Tabitha Bailey
+1.805.241.2532
Tabitha.Bailey@genband.com
Trademark notes: G6® and General Bandwidth® are registered trademarks of General Bandwidth Inc. CableLabs® and PacketCableTM are marks of Cable Television Laboratories, Inc.
