Voip billing solution

Cisco Systems, Inc. and Portal Software Inc., Monday announced that Infranet IPT, Portal's real-time customer management and billing solution for Internet telephony service providers (ITSPs), has been tested with the Cisco AS5300 VoIP gateway. Infranet IPT provides ITSPs that want to deploy large Cisco-based VoIP systems with a flexible, scalable platform for real-time service creation and management and billing of IP telephony services. Default configurations exist in Infranet IPT for out of the box operation with Cisco AS5300 gateways.

"As Cisco continues to drive the transition of voice traffic from public switched networks to IP networks, we are finding that service providers are demanding billing systems developed specifically for IP services," said Alistair Woodman, group marketing manager, Packet Voice Technologies at Cisco. "Portal's Infranet IPT delivers a customer management and billing platform with the flexibility our customers need to add new services and pricing plans in real-time. We are happy that Portal's leading solution is now available to our VoIP customers."

"Portal's solution provides ITSPs with an extremely effective and flexible solution," said Steve Sommer, vice president of business development at Portal Software. "With Infranet IPT, Cisco's VoIP customers have increased flexibility to offer multiple IP-based services and deliver them in a variety of pricing plans that provide the best value to the subscriber."

Infranet IPT is a complete end-to-end customer management and billing solution for businesses offering IP telephony service. An integral part of business operations, Infranet IPT delivers specific customer management and billing features essential to ITSPs, such as a real-time architecture, support for unlimited services and pricing plans, out-of-the-box gateway integration, prepaid calling card support and zone-based rating management.

Designed to be an integral part of business operations, Infranet IPT optimizes resources for each step in the IP telephony process such as setting up calls, monitoring calls in progress, tracking usage and billing subscribers. Capabilities of Infranet IPT include account creation, authentication and authorization, activity tracking, rating, billing and data analysis and reporting.

Cisco AS5300 VOIP Gateway The Cisco AS5300 VOIP gateway is a high performance H.323-compliant gateway optimized for VOIP applications. Supporting up to 2T1/E1 digital channels, it connects with existing telephones and fax machines through the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN), key systems and PBXs, making the process of placing calls over the IP network transparent to users. According to Mier Communications, a networking consultancy and product-test center, which tested the voice/fax feature cards for the Cisco AS5300, "The quality of voice, under normal network operating conditions, is the best of any VoIP product we have tested to date." Portal's software has been fully tested with Cisco's AS5300 VOIP gateway. FMI: http://www.cisco.com

Portal Software, Inc. develops and markets the industry's most scalable and adaptable customer management and billing software for providers of Internet services. Portal's software allows ISPs and other providers of Internet-based services to effectively manage the core operations of their online business by responding to customer needs and market opportunities in real time. Target markets include Internet access businesses; next-generation IP-based services such as Internet telephony and virtual private networks (VPNs); other consumer and business services such as content management, Web hosting, online gaming and entertainment. Portal's customers include leading Internet businesses worldwide such as US WEST, Microsoft, Juno, Grolier Online, France Telecom, OzEmail, VeriSign and ICL Games Zone. Headquartered in Cupertino, California, Portal has offices throughout the U.S., as well as Hong Kong, Sydney and London. Information about Portal and its products can be found at http://www.portal.com.