PortaOne Announces Availability Of PortaSwitch MR29, Offering Upgrades Plus New Features, Product Integration

COQUITLAM, British Columbia, Oct. 2, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- PortaOne, Inc., a global provider of software for the communications and utility industries, today announced the availability of Maintenance Release 29 (MR29) for PortaSwitch, the company's flagship telecommunication services and subscriber management platform. MR29, continuing PortaOne's record of on-time, high-value improvement releases, offers a number of market-driven features and upgrades including SMS customer notification and on-demand DID provisioning through DIDx.

With MR29, PortaOne is also initiating a consolidation of its PortaUM and PortaSIP product lines. Existing PortaUM and PortaSIP customers will experience no major changes in the near term; for new customers, however, PortaUM will no longer be a separate license and will be offered as a media server of PortaSIP. Eventually, PortaUM will be fully integrated with PortaSIP under a two-server configuration that gives all telecoms a more streamlined path for their product/service expansions.

New Features
Maintenance Release 29 is the fourth to be issued since PortaOne announced its bi-monthly release schedule last May. Specific new functionality includes:

• Temporary Credit Limit Increase: Allows providers to grant a credit limit extension to a customer for a defined period; the limit is restored to the original value after expiration.
• On-Demand DID Provisioning With DIDx: Online DID marketplace DIDx.net is now one of the options for automated, on-demand DID (Direct Inbound Dialing) number provisioning.
• Call Forwarding from IP Phones: End users can now program a "forward to" number directly into his or her phone, simplifying the migration of PBX users to IP Centrex.
• SMS Notifications: PortaSwitch's customer service alert capability has been expanded from email to include SMS messages sent directly to the user's mobile phone.
• New Taxation Mode for BillSoft: A new taxation mode, "switched trunk services," will be supported with BillSoft in addition to the current mode, "non-switched trunk services." This allows providers to perform taxation for SIP trunking services for U.S. customers.
• Corporate PIN-less Dialing IVR: Allows providers to deliver PIN-less dialing to enterprise customers when multiple individuals place calls using the same caller number, typically the enterprise's main phone line. End users will enter a separate PIN so that calls are properly authorized and identified on a combined invoice.

PortaUM/PortaSIP
PortaOne's integration of PortaUM into PortaSIP will result in a more unified configuration. For existing customers, the only change at present will be new names for the two products: PortaUM will now be known as PortaSIP Media Server, while PortaSIP will be called PortaSIP Switching Server.

Effective immediately, new customers purchasing PortaSIP will do so under a single two-server licensing arrangement wherein PortaSIP will be the main switching server and PortaUM functionality will be delivered via separate media server. Secondary licenses will be available in various options to give broader flexibility to customers based on their expansion needs. PortaOne anticipates completing its integration of PortaUM with PortaSIP within the coming year through upcoming maintenance releases.

"PortaOne is committed to offering its telecom customers relevant and robust improvements to the PortaSwitch suite of products on a dependable schedule. The release of MR29—another on-time delivery for us—not only sustains our promise, but also gives our customers some hugely valuable new capabilities," said Andriy Zhylenko, chief technical officer for PortaOne.

Availability
All current PortaSwitch owners whose staging platforms are covered by PortaOne's PortaCare technical support program are eligible to obtain MR29 for testing purposes. Minimum hardware and software requirements, listed at http://portaone.com/hw, are the same as for full commercial installations. Users who already have a staging license can simply contact their PortaOne support team; to order a new staging license, interested users should write to [email protected].

About PortaOne:
Based in Canada, PortaOne is a leading global provider of software for the telecommunications and utility industries. The company's products enable service providers and carriers to run a broad line of retail and wholesale services within a single software package.  PortaOne's flagship products, PortaSwitch and PortaMDM (www.portamdm.com) are a fundamental part of the business infrastructure for over 360 service providers and telcos in 80 countries worldwide. Over two-thirds of PortaOne staff are support engineers providing the best-in-industry 24/7 technical support services for clients involved in hosted IP PBX and SIP trunking services, calling cards, wholesale exchange and termination, residential triple-play, MVNO/MVNE, callbacks and more. To learn more, visit www.portaone.com.

SOURCE PortaOne, Inc.