Japan's Fusion Communications deploys XACCT N2B platform for its IP network services

EDP Weekly's IT Monitor, Sept 2, 2002

XACCT Technologies, a provider of network data management platform for global communications service providers, recently announced that Fusion Communications Corporation, a provider of Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) service in the Asia-Pacific region, has deployed XACCT's real-time "Network-to-Business" (N2B) software platform to implement value-based pricing models for their services. The XACCT platform enables Fusion to capture service usage data as well as highly granular quality of service (QoS) information from any point in its network. This allows Fusion to offer differentiated services with predictable QoS.

Fusion Communications, based in Tokyo, Japan, is a new breed of carrier established in 2000 and began operation in April 2001. Fusion is recognized as a VoIP pioneer and has built its own nationwide backbone network, which utilizes advanced network technologies and is one of Japan's largest. Fusion is first in Japan to offer IP tandem bypass service fusing voice and data communications over a dedicated IP network.

To meet the aggressive timeline for nationwide service rollout, Fusion's strategy was to pick the best-of-breed, proven solutions and partners for their network as well as the backoffice. Infocom Corporation, a partner of XACCT Technologies Ltd. in Japan, NTT Data, the biggest systems integration company in Japan, and XACCT collaborated to assure the success of this rapid deployment and integration of XACCTusage with Fusion's network and the backoffice.

"More and more enterprises are switching to VoIP networks for two reasons--cost and service quality," said Tadahisa Sumida, CEO of Fusion Communications Corporation. "As a leading-edge carrier, we needed to seize this market opportunity and deploy new services quickly. We looked long and hard for a field-proven software infrastructure solution for our back-office systems. After evaluating several solutions, we chose XACCT because it is the only unified platform available for all of our current and next generation services. By stripping network information layer by layer, our back-office management team can detect problems before they arise, helping us deliver on our QoS promise."

"Fusion is a great success story. Within little over one year of operation, with its innovative and nimble approach, Fusion has already established itself as the leading IP Telephony player in Japan, with over 1.5 million subscribers," said Eric Gries, president and CEO of XACCT. "We are very pleased to be a part of Fusion's success."

With 18 Network Centers across Japan, Fusion plans to offer IP subscriber telephony service to users with broadband connections, in addition to long-distance service. It plans to target this service not only at corporate users of Fusion's IP-VPN service, but at users of other broadband connection environments as well.

"Fusion's success has a lot to do with their market-driven approach to developing new services combined with rapid deployment strategy," said Gil Itkin, managing director for XACCT Technologies in Asia-Pacific. "In Asia-Pacific, more carriers like Fusion Communications are turning to XACCT and our global partnership program so that they can use trusted solutions to maximize their business opportunity. Fusion Communications joins over 70 other leading operators who have successfully leveraged XACCT to maximize revenues from their IP services."