ANPI today announced collaboration with BroadSoft®, Inc. and Sonus Networks, Inc., to create an innovative cloud‐based Unified Communications (UC) solution for U.S. rural telecommunications service providers focused on serving the small and medium business (SMB) market.

Technological and regulatory modifications are introducing unprecedented change to historic business models for rural service providers. The collaboration among ANPI, BroadSoft and Sonus brings together leading networking companies with a commitment to leverage their respective capabilities to develop innovative technologies and support solutions tailored to meet the needs and help propel the growth of rural service providers.

ANPI has provided voice and data solutions to rural local exchange carriers for over 17 years, and currently services nearly 800 carrier customers across the U.S. Consequently, ANPI is uniquely positioned to enable Rural Local Exchange Carriers (RLECs) to aggressively and economically expand their markets and begin serving the large and growing demand for Cloud‐based UC services among SMBs. To provide this capability, ANPI expanded their nationwide network of switching centers using Sonus’ Session Border Controllers (SBCs), gateways and its network policy solution, which are fully integrated with BroadSoft’s BroadWorks® for delivering these UC services.

“Our carriers needed a trusted partner who could provide a true end‐to‐end solution that seamlessly integrates industry‐leading applications delivered across industry‐leading platforms. With the collaboration announced today, the companies are leveraging a high level of technology leadership and domain depth to deliver UC services that meet the needs of the evolving rural telecommunications market,” stated Dave Lewis, ANPI CEO. “The industry positions occupied by BroadSoft and Sonus are complemented by our understanding of the RLEC market, which we have acquired through nearly two decades of delivering communications solutions to hundreds of rural providers. In the first three weeks since introducing our UC solution, we’ve received a good deal of initial market interest from rural carriers. The stability, innovation and commitment that ANPI, BroadSoft and Sonus are bringing to this project will provide a remarkable foundation for the RLEC community to truly reinvigorate their prospects for growth.”

“BroadSoft has long empowered service providers to deliver a full range of Unified Communications services, and we’re excited to now be working with Sonus and ANPI to help create solutions specifically for the rural service provider market,” said Steve Kaish, vice president, business development, BroadSoft. “The exciting aspect of this collaboration is the opportunity to combine BroadSoft’s UC services with the innovative service delivery and support structures ANPI has developed, along with Sonus’ carrier class infrastructure. We believe that our collaboration will enable rural carriers to utilize the collective technologies to better serve their markets by delivering the benefits of UC services for SMBs throughout rural America.”

“This collaboration represents our commitment to enabling carriers to deliver smarter and faster business communications,” said Todd A. Abbott, executive vice president, Strategy & Go to Market, Sonus. “It is evident that the service model for all carriers must evolve to address regulatory changes and to take advantage of technological innovation which is a cornerstone of Sonus. We believe that the combination of ANPI’s deep knowledge of the RLEC space matched with BroadSoft’s award‐winning hosted UC platform and our ability to help companies fully leverage their communications networks via SIP, creates a real opportunity to re‐write the economic equation of service delivery for RLECs by lowering costs, increasing market opportunity and prompting faster time to service deployments.”

ANPI noted that its goals are to dramatically increase the market opportunity available to RLEC service providers, substantially lower their service delivery costs, reduce capital investments and significantly accelerate the rate of service innovation these carriers are able to deliver to the marketplace. ANPI, BroadSoft and Sonus expect this collaboration will be successful in achieving those outcomes.