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Telephony magazine, a Penton Media publication, has awarded LightEdge Solutions®, Inc. the 2007 Telephony Innovation Award for Innovative Technology Deployment based on its utilization of Actelis Networks’ EFMplus™ Ethernet over copper technology. LightEdge Solutions, one of the Midwest’s leading providers of enterprise-grade, managed voice, data and IT services for small and medium sized businesses, has deployed this solution for customers with ongoing scalability needs.
The Telephony Innovation Awards—given for the first time at Telephony LIVE: The 2007 Telecom Summit in Dallas—recognizes service providers who have developed unique or first-to-market offerings that utilize technology or address customers’ needs in a new way. Focused on five key categories, the innovations recognized come in many forms: design, delivery, pricing, bundling, packaging or customer service and address various market segments, including consumers, corporate enterprises and SMBs. Award recipients were recognized at a special presentation held during Telephony LIVE on October 10.
“We established these awards to recognize innovation in the industry at a time when all service providers are trying to differentiate themselves in a highly competitive market,” said Telephony Publisher Mark Hickey. “The award winners are companies who chose not to just follow the technology curve, but to bring their customers services that meet their needs in distinctive ways.”
LightEdge Solutions deployed Actelis’ ML600 Ethernet Access Devices (EADs) and ML100 and ML1300 transport and aggregation switches to better serve the growing bandwidth needs of its SMB customers. By utilizing Actelis’ products—built with EFMplus technology—as a cost-effective alternative to slower T-1 lines, business customers can connect quickly to the LightEdge IP network via symmetrical Ethernet access connections for high-speed Internet access, Voice-over-IP (VoIP), remote managed back-up and security services, as well as retrieve applications and data on servers within LightEdge’s data center.
“With traditional T-1 lines delivering only 1.5 Mbps, we would have to either add line cards to the router or change routers completely to upgrade the bandwidth service of a customer,” said Kris Harris, vice president of operations at LightEdge Solutions. “The Actelis carrier Ethernet solution is efficient because we can leverage the same equipment for all service levels. This provides our business customers the ability to quickly upgrade their bandwidth as much as tenfold without the need for additional equipment or the time necessary to process changes. When customers need more than a bonded 2xT-1 line or have foreseeable scalability needs, the Actelis option makes a lot of sense.”
“Carrier Ethernet over copper technology has become a popular way for service providers to extend the reach of their networks to offer more bandwidth more easily and cost effectively,” said Telephony Editor-in-Chief Carol Wilson. “LightEdge has gone beyond the standard offering, however, with managed services that deliver data networking, IT hosting/management and hosted VoIP services that scale on demand, taking full advantage of what the Actelis technology can deliver. This makes the service very appealing to small to mid-sized businesses that want sophisticated service offerings without the capital expense or need for an IT staff.”
Telephony received more than 80 nominations for its Telephony Innovation Awards. The process was handled by the mBLAST customer relationship management system. Judging was done by members of the Telephony editorial staff and guest judges Teresa Mastrangelo of Broadbandtrends.com and Cindy Whelan of Current Analysis.
“It is an honor to be recognized as an innovator by Telephony magazine,” said Jim Masterson, chairman and chief executive officer of LightEdge Solutions. “For LightEdge, it’s simply about providing technology that is valuable and impactful for our customers. With its incredible scalability, Ethernet over copper has been a real winner for our customers needing high-bandwidth service at a lower cost than banded T1s.
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