Patriot Media has deployed cable VoIP technology from Nortel to offer Patriot's Digital Phone service to more than 115,000 homes in central New Jersey. The initial deployment was accomplished in one month from shipment to in-service with the aid of Nortel Global Services.

"Adding voice capability to the Patriot Media network was a significant and critical step for us, and we presented Nortel with an extremely aggressive deployment schedule," said Jim Holanda, president and general manger, Patriot Media. "To successfully meet each of our deadlines, Nortel brought together an exceptional team of services engineers with a robust cable VoIP solution to ensure Patriot Media's Digital Phone service delivers the highest standards of quality and reliability for our customers."



Nortel Global Services provided to Patriot Media under an equipment and services agreement include consulting to minimize capital, operating and engineering costs while maximizing network and service performance. Patriot Media will continue to use Nortel Global Services to lead planning, program management, multi-vendor integration, interoperability testing and on-going deployment of its VoIP solution to promote smooth end-to-end network implementation.

Built on Nortel's PacketCable-qualified Communication Server 2000-Compact softswitches, Patriot Media's Digital Phone service uses a Quality of Service (QOS) standard designed to ensure that voice calls are not affected by other Internet applications that may be running simultaneously. A constant information stream is expected to provide high levels of voice quality and eliminates echoes in the line and voice break-up.

"The SIP functionality of Nortel's softswitch allows us to efficiently connect to other telephony networks, and to pave the way for future SIP-enabled opportunities such as telephone caller ID and other features through the television display in one integrated experience," Holanda said.

Nortel provided Patriot Media with IP Unity's Mereon 6000 Media Server and Mereon Unified Messaging application to offer customers enhanced voice mail service. Enhanced voice mail provides all of the features of a traditional answering machine with added convenience and flexibility, such as the ability to manage and access messages from anywhere in the world via telephone or the Internet.

"As the competition heats up to capture more subscribers and keep pace with new technologies, cable customers like Patriot Media continue to look at VoIP technologies to give subscribers the best of the Internet with the best of today's telephone network," said Dan Mondor, general manager, Cable Network Solutions, Nortel. "One of Nortel's key strategies in making this possible is integrating products from companies like IP Unity into our service offerings to give providers a complete cable telephony solution that is designed to address their current needs and grow with their businesses."

Nortel ranked number one in the global markets for service provider softswitches and gateways for the first half of 2005 and the entire year of 2004, according to Synergy Research Group. Nortel's cable solutions have been selected by leading operators around the world, including Cox Communications, Rogers Cable, Adelphia Communications, Charter Communications, Shaw Cablesystems, Cable One, ish, Kabel BW, TeleCable, Telenet, Dacom, Gansu, Cable Onda, and Intercable.