Transforming Networks. Transforming GENBAND.

As the year comes to a close, I want to take this opportunity to thank you for your continued loyalty and express my warmest wishes to you and your family for the holiday season.

2010 has been a monumental year for GENBAND. I have always believed that great companies never stand still – they continue to evolve and grow to meet the changing needs of the marketplace and their customers. That is exactly what this year has been about for GENBAND.

We have executed a game-changing acquisition. We have opened new offices around the world. We have launched new product families. We have grown.

More than any company today, GENBAND is now positioned to lead the world in transforming networks. We couldn’t be more energized by the opportunity to help service providers build the best business case for evolution to IP. We understand that creating new sources of revenue through IP functionality is essential to the success of any network transformation strategy. Our experience along every step of the migration process allows GENBAND to guide our valued customers beyond the business case analysis stage through to implementation and ongoing operation.

At the heart of our Network Transformation solutions sits GENBAND GENiUS™, our industry leading Unified IP Switching and Networking platform that supports multi-purpose IP solutions. By launching GENiUS, we have found a way to enable our service provider customers to design networks with the latest in state-of-the-art IP technology with unmatched scale, flexibility and cost.

The unique design concept behind GENiUS enables the platform to truly be greater than the sum of its parts, with the best in reliability, operational simplicity, capacity and security. With GENBAND’s focus on Network Transformation, Convergence and Mobile Broadband, our product and solution strategy is pin-point focused on the power of GENiUS.

Bringing the GENiUS platform to market would never have been possible without the seamless integration and synergies of GENBAND and Nortel CVAS. We have worked hard at GENBAND to build a company culture that is relentlessly customer focused and one that tirelessly concentrates on IP innovation. The company assets and experienced teams we acquired from Nortel share this vision and we are thriving under a unified GENBAND culture.

We look forward to the many opportunities ahead of us as we support the network transformations underway in service provider networks around the world. Network migration to IP unlocks a bright future of new revenue, productivity and functionality that will be essential to growth and economic recovery in 2011.

Thank you for giving us the opportunity to participate in the greatest industry on earth and for your continued support.

To everyone in the GENBAND family – our people, our customers, our business partners, and our shareholders – I would like to wish you all a happy and prosperous new year.

Charlie

GENBAND recently moved its corporate headquarters from Plano, Texas to a new state-of-the-art facility in Frisco, Texas. GENBAND will retain its existing Global Design Center in Plano where it employs around 350 people and moved another 200 people to the new 60,000 square-foot headquarters. The new location prominently portrays GENBAND’s brand and positions GENBAND for long-term growth, and is well situated in the Dallas Metroplex platinum corridor and close to the DFW airport.

GENBAND’s world-class Professional Services organization provides state-of-the-art network design and deployment, 365/24/7 customer support and end-to-end managed services. The Professional Services portfolio offers one of the broadest and most extensive sets of assets and experts in the industry to efficiently deploy, optimize or transition carrier networks for IP, NGN, IMS and mobile convergence.

GENBAND introduces the T-Series for our industry-leading Service Management Tools, including the T20 Access Care and the T30 Product and Service Provisioning (PSP). GENBAND’s T30 PSP is used by over 70 carriers worldwide to help manage and streamline the provisioning of network and subscriber services. GENBAND’s T20 Access Care provides a comprehensive suite of Trouble Ticket, Workforce and Workload Management applications, coupled with extensive remote network Test and Diagnostic capabilities for Customer Care operations. T20 Access Care is used today by Service Providers around the world.

We are building a number of T-Series products under the Service Management Tools umbrella, while the customer modules for T20 Access Care and T30 PSP remain the same. Customer modules for the T20 Access Care include: Universal and Network Ticketing, Workforce Management, WebCare as well as Test and Diagnostics. Customer Modules for T30 PSP include: Network Configuration, Service Activation and API. For more information about GENBAND’s Professional Services, take a look at our product description.

GENBAND recently participated in the CALIX User Group conference that took place in Las Vegas and brought together 1,100 people to learn, share knowledge and insight, and see first-hand several major upcoming CALIX products.  GENBAND’s President and CEO, Charlie Vogt, was on the keynote panel with Kevin DeNuccio, the CEO of Metaswitch.

They discussed the future of voice technologies, unified communications and network operational efficiency.  There were many joint GENBAND / CALIX customers in attendance and GENBAND provided live demos of the C15 and answered questions from our customers.

Over the last few months GENBAND has been moving throughout the Middle East to promote our leadership in global IP infrastructure and service solutions. Our company offers market-leading Switching, Networking and Service solutions, with products deployed in over 600 customer networks spanning more than 80 countries.

We recently visited Dubai for the GITEX Technology Week 2010 and Istanbul for the Net Events press summit.

Last quarter we also announced several new customers in the region, one was du from the UAE.  du expanded their fixed network with advanced IP NGN services with one of our market-leading IP Switching solutions. This network expansion enables du to offer more reliable and advanced Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) communications - widely used for offering access to multimedia communication sessions to residential and business subscribers across the UAE.

Digital Star, a new Saudi Arabian service provider, purchased our market-leading IP media gateways, call control and session border controllers (SBCs) to interconnect and intelligently route traffic on an any-to-any basis, whether IP, TDM, fixed or mobile.  We also teamed up with Verscom, a GENBAND valued-added reseller, to provide Quantum Global Networks’ (QGN) group in Pakistan with leading-edge VoIP interconnect solution.  QGN group, a major player in Pakistan LDI (long distance international) telecommunication sector, selected our S3™ Session Border Controller (SBC) to provide an intelligent and secure wholesale peering solution.

Speaking of value-added resellers, we now have seven resellers in the Middle East that include Verscom and NETAS in Turkey, BMC and BTC in Saudi Arabia, Bynet and Telrad in Israel, and EXL Tech in Egypt. We continue to sharpen our focus in the Middle East and expand our presence.  Feel free to contact GENBAND or any of our value-added resellers for more information about any of our products and solutions. 

The past year has seen a number of important developments that are reshaping our industry: The FCC is moving to clarify the rules for the transition from the circuit switched PSTN to a broadband VoIP network. This promises to remove the current regulatory uncertainty that is in no one’s interest. Mobile data grew by 68% in the first half of this year, and shows no signs of slowing in the foreseeable future. The growth in mobile data is being driven by video streaming and social networking. This growth rate has led most carriers to move away from flat rate data plans to usage based data plans. Over the top (OTT) applications, in particular social networking applications, are reshaping the services space. These OTT applications have created a user base that is larger and more engaged than virtually any other market including the current telecommunications carriers. These social networking sites are aggressively expanding into the communications space, as evidenced by the planned integration of Skype and Facebook. Mobile advertising has come of age, and is expected to double this year, and could generate more revenue than the advertising on today’s web ($25 Billion in the U.S.) within a few years. OTT video providers such as of Netflix, Amazon Video, Hulu, YouTube, Roku, Vudu, Apple TV and now Google TV are changing the video landscape, and continuing to drive Internet data growth.

These trends will create a number of opportunities as they play out over the coming year. As the regulatory picture clarifies, the transition from PSTN to an all IP network will accelerate. GENBAND VoIP products, based on the GENiUS platform, will play a strong role in this transformation. The growth of OTT applications and mobile advertising means that search is no longer the one place where almost every Internet session starts. You don’t need a search engine to locate content on Apple TV, buy items on eBay and Amazon, or to find your friends on Facebook. The Carrier is the only point that sees absolutely all users’ content. With the right context for net neutrality and opt-in plus solutions to address issues related to end user privacy, a Traffic and Policy Management (TPM) solution that enables mobile advertising will create a substantial revenue growth opportunity for Carriers. The need to manage mobile data growth with usage-based mobile data plans will further increase the role for TPM solutions.

Just in time for the holiday shopping season, GENBAND unveiled a virtual web-based showroom that allows service providers and end-users to “shop-around” and see some of the latest IP-enabled communications applications designed to improve business collaboration and productivity.

Dubbed “GENApps,” the new showroom features more than 20 applications developed by GENBAND and, our partners and the developer community. Additional applications will be added each quarter. Powered by GENBAND’s industry-leading A2 Converged Application Server, all of these applications are designed to help boost service providers’ competitive advantage and subscriber growth, while facilitating the exchange of applications between the various groups. Service Providers and end-users can download the applications, rate the applications (future) and view video clips as well as request a demo or more information.

See below for a quick summary of the different types of applications featured:

	Unified Communications applications that combine business voice, email, conferencing, presence and mobility applications into a single, converged network. This application includes a PC-based call control capability through GENBAND’s Personal Communicator PC client, which allows users to handle incoming calls, view call logs, manage voicemail and send and receive text messages from their PC.
	Integrated Audio, Video and Web Conferencing applications that help make meetings more productive. This application allows meeting participants to launch a web collaboration session and also broadcast or share their desktop with meeting attendees in real-time. Enterprises with distributed workforces can leverage this application to maximize productivity and reduce travel expenses.
	Enterprise mobility application that helps transform any mobile Smartphone phone into a Hosted-IP office extension, giving mobile workers access to the same corporate network voice calling features as their desk phones, including internal extension dialing, conferencing and call transferring while consolidating all devices under one business phone number.
	Web Portal application that enables an enterprise to quickly and easily perform Moves, Adds and Changes (MACs) of communication services without having to make a request to the service provider. This application gives an enterprise greater control and flexibility over their network configuration and capabilities.
	Advanced Messaging application that allows users to better manage messages by enabling access to voice messages directly from a mobile handset, with an email-like display that interacts with the user’s contact list. VoIP subscribers receive messages quickly, intuitively, and easily, and they benefit from a refreshing voicemail experience.

In the coming months, we will add the following functionality and applications categories:

	Developer Community that will facilitate sharing of ideas between developers, service providers and end users on 3rd party developed applications. In addition to uploading applications, developers can test their applications against the A2 in our sandbox.
	Customer Relationship Management (CRM) applications that allow a sales person to better manage their customer interactions and, for example, immediately connect with their customers via “click-to-call” from Google mail or Yahoo mail.
	Integrated applications targeted at specific vertical markets, such as healthcare, government, legal and education enterprise segments.

Knowledge Services (KS) now has two new training courses available in support of the A2 and C20 on ATCA products. Please click on the course syllabus links for course A225 Adaptive Application Engine (A2) - Fault Management and aTCA15 C20 - Advanced Telecommunications Computing Architecture (ATCA) Operations and Maintenance to learn more about these new courses.

KS is very pleased to announce that training has begun in the new GENBAND facility located in Maidenhead, UK. Customers are welcome to attend product training events in the comfort of fully refurbished classrooms and enjoy access to dedicated training lab equipment.

KS is also investing in the GENBAND Plano, Texas training facility equipping it with two new eLearning training studios and beginning January 2011, will start delivering C3, G2, G6, G9, S3 and P-Series (Traffic and Policy Management – TPM) training via the Internet for the first time!

The GENBAND product training schedule for the first quarter of 2011 will be available at the GENBAND training web site training course registration page the week of November 29th. The training schedule for Q2 will be made available shortly thereafter.

GENBAND has been honored with several industry and association awards over the past few months. These recent recognitions are reconfirmation of GENBAND’s continued and unmatched leadership in the IP voice and infrastructure space.

	Most recently, GENBAND was named the Carrier VoIP Vendor of the Year in this year’s Telecom Asia magazine’s 2010 Readers’ Choice Awards. This award recognizes the technology innovations and contributions to the industry made by top telecommunications vendors operating across Asia. Nominations were made in September by 61 analysts, consultants and service providers before voting was opened to the magazine’s online subscriber base of service providers.
	GENBAND ranked 142 on Deloitte's 2010 Technology Fast 500, a ranking of the 500 fastest growing technology, media, telecommunications and life sciences companies in North America. Rankings are based on percentage of fiscal year revenue growth from 2005-2009. GENBAND grew 731 percent during this period.
	Charlie Vogt, President and CEO of GENBAND, was named one of the 100 most powerful people in the telecom industry worldwide by Global Telecoms Business magazine. This year’s Power100 list was compiled from nominations by worldwide readers of Global Telecoms Business — including CEOs, CFOs and other senior executives of the world’s major operators, telecom vendors and industry organizations. Vogt ranked 43rd on the annual list.
	Charlie was named the Corporate CEO of the Year by the Metroplex Technology Business Council (MTBC) for his outstanding leadership in the technology and communications industry. The MTBC is the premier technology association in Texas and the largest pure technology trade association in the Southwestern United States.
	Charlie was also honored by his alma mater, Saint Louis University. He is one of eight alumni selected by the University’s Center of Entrepreneurship to be inducted into the Smurfit-Stone Entrepreneurial Alumni Hall of Fame. Now in its fourth year, the annual award recognizes SLU graduates who have contributed to society through entrepreneurial leadership and service to the community.

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