Oct. 20, 2009 (Business Wire) -- Acme Packet® (NASDAQ: APKT), the leader in session border control solutions, today announced a series of new capabilities for its session routing proxy, the Net-Net Session Router (SR), that are designed to help service providers gain operational efficiencies while offloading functionality from older, more expensive Class 4 networks. These new functions are enabled by Acme Packet’s Open Session Routing (OSR) architecture and exploit the efficient, high-performance ENUM protocol to enable IP-based number portability (NP) services, trusted calling party name (CNAM) services, geo-redundant access to routing databases, and source-based SIP session routing to simplify, consolidate and optimize core SIP routing infrastructure for wireline, wireless and cable operators around the world.

Acme Packet’s Net-Net SR’s new capabilities address the increasing demand from service providers for features and functionality that ease the transition from SS7 call routing to SIP-based session routing in service provider core networks. This functional parity with traditional services is a must-have for next-generation, IP-based services. Today wireline and wireless providers are under increased competitive threats and looking to reduce costs and protect their base of residential and business subscribers as they migrate to next-generation, interactive voice, video and messaging services based on 3G and 4G IMS architectures. At the same time, emerging service providers are seeking growth opportunities and basing their entire service infrastructures on IP.

Acme Packet’s OSR architecture features the use of Acme Packet’s Net-Net-SR working in conjunction with best-of-breed routing database products and services from Acme Packet OSR ecosystem members. These complementary product vendors and service providers offer centralized routing databases and database provisioning tools for dynamic route selection and enhanced routing services. Acme Packet’s Net-Net SR and its integrated session border controller, the Net-Net Session Director (SD), queries these databases using industry-standard ENUM, SIP and DNS protocols. Using these databases, dynamic routing decisions within the core IP network, as well as to the PSTN and other IP networks, may be made using a broad selection of parameters.

New capabilities for Acme Packet’s Net-Net SR include:

• IP-based number portability services

Number portability (NP) allows subscribers to keep their phone number even as they transition to a new service provider. NP affects all types of communications including voice, SMS/MMS, video, push-to-talk, and other interactive services and is essential as more countries worldwide open up competition among service providers. The costs associated with NP can be high due to conveyance fees, mobile termination rate adjustments, inefficient use of network resources, and degraded audio or video quality. Acme Packet’s Net-Net SR helps lower the costs associated with NP services by utilizing the ENUM protocol to obtain routing information for ported numbers and then forwarding the session to the correct destination.