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Soldiers in Afghanistan phone home with VoIP |
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Friday, 09 July 2004 |
01 July, 2004:
VegaStream, a leading supplier of dedicated VoIP (Voice over IP)
Gateways, today announced that VoIP is being deployed in Afghanistan to
enable Canadian Armed Forces to phone home at very low cost. The Vega
VoIP gateways have been integrated with telecommunications provider
CALL UK's secure satellite infrastructure to deliver the Welfare
Calling Package.
With
a contract to supply a communication system to 2,000 troops in
Afghanistan, CALL UK needed a VoIP gateway that was reliable and low
maintenance. Integrating VegaStream's Vega 50 and Vega 100 gateways
with its existing solution, the company has been able to provide the
Canadian army with the Welfare Calling Package: a voice over satellite
service that allows each soldier 35 minutes per week of call time with
family and friends back home. The solution, which includes a personal
voicemail service, is also used by local contractors in Afghanistan as
a pre-paid calling system. All elements of the package comply with the
stringent security requirements that are needed for traffic from and to
military gateways.
CALL
UK provides telecom switches for carrying both restricted and
unrestricted voice, fax and data. With nodes in Brackley, Amsterdam and
London, CALL UK is able to cover a satellite footprint ranging from
Pakistan to the Falkland Islands. This enables them to capture traffic
from particularly difficult and restricted bandwidth locations such as
the Middle East and Africa.
VegaStream's
VoIP gateways are open standards based and are completely compatible
with both CALL UK's existing infrastructure and Afghanistan's local
networks. Its superior technology and support services mean that CALL
UK can provide high quality and reliable communications at a very
competitive price.
"Military
communications services must be secure, failsafe and ideally low cost.
For the deployment in Afghanistan, we needed a VoIP solution that was
flexible enough to fit in with our existing services and was 100 per
cent reliable," said James Body, Technical Sales Manager at CALL UK.
"With VegaStream we found a perfect fit. Its easy to configure VoIP
gateways and outstanding support has enabled us to tailor a VoIP
solution to meet the very specific requirements of the Canadian Army."
"Voice
communications are vital for all of us especially when a long way from
home and in a hostile environment, but costs can often be prohibitive,"
said Tim Burne CEO, VegaStream. "It is great to see that by using our
gateways with CALL UK's satellite service we have provided a way for
soldiers to stay in touch with their loved ones."
www.calluk.com
www.vegastream.com
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