Quintum Enables Solution Provider to Execute Uniquely Effective “Land and Expand” Managed VoIP Services Strategy

Quintum Technologies, a leading innovator in VoIP technologies and a subsidiary of Network Equipment Technologies, Inc., announced today that Irish solutions provider TIPS is using Quintum technology to implement an innovative and highly effective “land and expand” strategy that makes it easy for customers to give the go-ahead to money-saving VoIP initiatives by eliminating both capital cost and risk. The strategy also enables TIPS to capture a greater share of its customers’ voice business over time.

Unlike a typical VoIP solutions reseller, TIPS doesn’t ask its customers to take on the costs and risk associated with purchasing Quintum hardware and building their own VoIP architecture. And, unlike the typical managed services provider, TIPS doesn’t ask customers to dump their existing carrier and give TIPS 100% of their telecom volume.

Instead, TIPS installs a Quintum switch on the customer’s premises at no cost and lets the customer decide what portion of their voice traffic they want to re-route over the TIPS network. Customers can use TIPS for their inter-office traffic, their fixed-to-mobile traffic, their in-country long distance traffic, and/or their international traffic. They can change their minds any time – adding or eliminating “traffic of interest” as they see fit. They can also disengage with TIPS altogether if they ever want to, or they can use TIPS exclusively. The customer is always in control and always has zero risk.

As a result of this unique value proposition, TIPS can convert a high percentage of its prospects into customers. And once it gets a small initial foothold in the customer’s environment, TIPS can prove its value and gain a greater share of their voice business.

Quintum’s VoIP switching platform is uniquely suited for TIPS’s innovative business strategy. TIPS can quickly and easily install a Quintum switch in-line between the customer’s PBX and carrier access point. The customer doesn’t have to add a card or have any other integration work done by their PBX vendor – regardless of how old or new the PBX may be. The customer also doesn’t have to do any re-configuration work on their telecom network access hardware.

Also, because the Quintum switch is completely transparent to both the PBX and the existing telecom network access hardware, there is no risk to the customer. In fact, if the customer has concerns about the VoIP service they can simply unplug the Quintum switch at any time – and immediately restore the state of the network before it was installed.

Just as important, the settings for which traffic is routed via IP to TIPS for termination can be adjusted at any time with a few keystrokes. This gives both TIPS and its customers tremendous flexibility in their telecom decision-making.

With Quintum, TIPS can also provide customers with value-adds that their incumbent carriers don’t offer – such as electronic reporting. Quintum and TIPS also provide free office-to-office calls.

“Because we don’t ask new customers to make any irreversible changes in their telephony environments, it’s very easy for them to agree to a pilot,” says TIPS director David Ralph. “We are only able to offer them this compelling proposition because Quintum’s VoIP solution is completely non-intrusive.”

After piloting the TIPS service at several of its campuses, Institutes of Technology Ireland (IoTI) expanded its implementation to include fixed-to-mobile calls. These calls only constitute 10% of IoTI’s total volume – but generate 60% of its telecom costs. By saving IoTI 12%-14% on those calls alone, TIPS delivers a significantly reduced overall monthly phone bill.

“TIPS is a great example of how Quintum’s technology can be used to disrupt existing market dynamics and profitably sell next-generation voice services,” said Chuck Rutledge, Quintum’s VP of marketing. “We continue working with our partners around the world to pursue more of these emerging opportunities.”

“Quintum's Tenors have a reputation for capabilities that far exceed those of traditional gateways,” states Elka Popova, Global Program Director, Enterprise Communications at Frost & Sullivan. “Couple those functionalities with a service provider like TIPS who thinks outside the box, and you definitely have a winning combination.”

About Quintum
Quintum Technologies, LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Network Equipment Technologies, Inc., is headquartered in Eatontown, NJ. Quintum delivers VoIP solutions designed to bring the reliability and voice clarity of public telephone networks to Internet telephony. Quintum's intelligent VoIP access solutions integrate easily into existing PBX and IP infrastructures, making them an ideal choice for service providers and enterprises alike.

Quintum was awarded the Frost & Sullivan 2007 Global Product Differentiation Innovation Award. Quintum is a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner, a Nortel Developer Partner and an Avaya Developer Connection Partner.

Quintum sells its switches worldwide through its direct sales force and a network of resellers and distributors. For more information, call 1-877-SPEAK IP (1-877-773-2547), 1-732-460-9000 outside the US, or visit http://www.quintum.com.

About Network Equipment Technologies, Inc.
For nearly a quarter of a century, Network Equipment Technologies, Inc. (NYSE: NWK) has provided voice and data communications equipment for multi-service networks requiring high degrees of versatility, interoperability, security and performance. NET’s broad family of products are purpose-built for mixed-service, multi-protocol networks; bandwidth-sensitive site communications; high-performance, security-sensitive transmissions; and converged communications. The company’s NX Series for network exchange solutions and VX Series for voice exchange solutions enable interoperability and integration with existing networks for seamless migration to secure IP-based voice and data communications. In addition, Quintum, a subsidiary of NET, delivers VoIP access solutions that bring the reliability and voice clarity of public telephone networks to Internet telephony. For more information, visit http://www.net.com.