News Briefs

Daleen Technologies Inc., which sells licensed and outsourced billing and customer management, OSS and revenue assurance solutions, has expanded its long-standing strategic partnership with Danet. The two companies are extending their current billing and OSS relationship to collaborate in the sales and delivery of comprehensive revenue assurance and costmanagement solutions, including Daleen’s new Asuriti software and Danet’s financial assurance solutions. Introduced in June 2003, Asuriti is designed to maximize a service provider’s revenues through the detection and elimination of leaks, gaps and errors in data, systems and processes that can delay, compromise or prevent accurate revenue recovery.

tel^x Turns Net Income Positive

tel^x, the largest interconnection hub of the world’s communications’ networks, has turned net income positive. The company says its dramatic revenue growth has allowed it to reach EBITDA positive, cash flow positive and now net income positive, all within less than 24 months. Additionally, tel^x recently closed on a $12 million Series A Preferred Stock financing, which includes the conversion of $8 million of debt and the infusion of $4 million of new cash. The proceeds are planned for expansion purposes, including adding facilities within New York City and in other major interconnect cities. Currently the telx hub is based at New York’s premiere carrier hotel, 60 Hudson St., with more than 100 network providers in its space.

Tollgrade Introduces DSL Test Tool

The new DigiTest EDGE product from Tollgrade Communications Inc. gives service providers end-to-end visibility into DSL connections for troubleshooting purposes. The DigiTest EDGE is the latest version of Tollgrade’s popular DigiTest test head. It allows service providers to do synchronization with the DSLAM; verify performance on the ATM link beyond the central office; and tap into the ISP part of the connection to do authentication, check performance and verify connection speeds to various Web sites, says Greg Quiggle, executive vice president of marketing at the company. “The test is a way for RBOCs to isolate themselves from an ISP problem” by giving the RBOC a view of subscribers’ connections all the way from inside the customer premises through the ISP network, he says. DigiTest EDGE, now available, connects to DSLAMs at central office or remote terminal locations. For DSLAMs without integrated test access, Tollgrade offers its TelAccord 1000 product, which sits between the DSLAM and the DigiTest.

3PV Debuts Martina Fast Trak

3PV-Third Party Verification Inc. is rolling out the latest addition to the Martina family of products, Martina Fast Trak, a rapid deployment third-party verification solution designed to be deployed within 48 hours. Fast Trak includes the functionality of Martina, the company’s automated TPV service that recognizes speech instead of keypad responses to verify orders. Like Martina, Fast Trak utilizes intuitive scripting which ensures that the right questions are asked in accordance with FCC and state requirements and the real-time reporting. “Martina Fast Trak is designed to help you maximize your sales,” says David Goldstone, 3PV’s director of sales and marketing. “The average TPV is less than two minutes in duration and the longer your customer is on the phone, the greater the chance that sale won’t go through. Every time a customer abandons during the TPV process, it costs your company money. With Fast Trak, we have seen our client’s completion rates climb as high as 99 percent, which means your customers are completing the TPV, yielding more confirmed revenue for your company.”

BillSoft, MetraTech Partner

Taxation software company BillSoft Inc. and billing software vendor MetraTech, have allied to provide joint customers with an integrated, real-time billing and taxation solution that enables service providers to offer timely and accurate billing and taxation for existing and new services. The joint solution combines BillSoft’s EZTax functionality with MetraTech’s MetraNet Web services-based billing solution to capture, label, group and provision customer call data for billing in real time according to federal, state, county and local tax rules. “Tax reconciliation and compliance is exceedingly difficult for today’s operators to handle,” says Vicki Klein, president of BillSoft. Depending on geography, for example, service providers are required to bill and remit up to 200,000 different taxes across the country. With the integrated solution from MetraTech and BillSoft, customers can alter billing rules as taxation laws fluctuate in different markets to ensure all taxes collected are current and accurately calculated. MetraNet configures tax logic and then transfers the information to EZTax to calculate applicable taxes for accurate billing. The combined offering is available as a licensed software or hosted offering.

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