Aksh Broadband Picks Verso for VoIP Deployment

April 14, 2003 -- (FIND VPN) -- Communcations solutions company Verso Technologies Inc. (Verso.com) announced on Friday that Aksh Broadband Limited (ABL) has chosen Verso's Clarent Edge Access and PSTN Access soft switch solutions to create the voice infrastructure for its new broadband network in India.

Along with local basic service providers, says Verso, ABL has been approved to launch a village public telephony offering that will deliver primary line and long distance telephony to Rajasthan, India by the end of 2004. Under the terms of the contract, Verso will provide licenses to serve 256,000 endpoints with its Edge Access Softswitch solution, making it one of the largest local VoIP networks in the world.

ABL announced in 2002 that it planned to build a next-generation network to provide telephone and Internet services to rural villages in India, which represent between 70 and 75 percent of India's 1.1 billion citizens. Rajasthan is the largest state in India, representing about 51 million citizens, or about five percent of the country's population, and containing more than 4,000 villages with populations as high as 30,000.

"Next generation solutions combining optical fiber, wireless and voice over IP make it possible for emerging nations like India to move beyond the economic constraints of traditional telephony and bring profitable voice services to even the most remote villages," said Steve Odom, Verso's chairman and chief executive officer. "This is a landmark opportunity for Verso to play a fundamental and continuing role in Aksh's vision of bringing accessible, high-quality communications to each state and village in rural India. We look forward to working together to ensure the fastest, most efficient and successful deployment possible."