August 31, 2009

Taqua 7000 Chosen to Replace Siemens DCO Switches in Ohio and Texas  

RICHARDSON, Texas  -- Taqua®, LLC, a leading supplier of next-generation switching systems and applications, today announced that both LaWard Telephone Company and Middle Point Telephone Company have chosen the Taqua 7000™ Switching System to replace their legacy Siemens DCO switches. 

LaWard Telephone Company was established in 1948 and today serves the South Texas communities of LaWard, Lolita, and Port Alto with state of the art Internet and telecommunication services.  In 1991 LaWard added cellular service packages to customers in Calhoun, Goliad and Dewitt counties.  Combined, LaWard now serves approximately 3,500 customers across these regions and can provide for all their residential and business telecommunications needs.

“We really like the architecture of the Taqua 7000 switching system,” said Nick Strauss, plant manager for LaWard Telephone Company.  “The flexibility of the system’s switch-on-a-card architecture allows us to do many different things from TDM, IP, and cellular switching.  We plan to immediately cut-over and replace the Siemens DCO with the Taqua 7000 for our land-line services, but in the future we would like to integrate the same system into our cellular network and that is easily done by simply sliding in a mobile interface card in the same compact chassis.” 

In 1903 Middle Point Telephone Company and Middle Point Southern Telephone Company merged to become The Middle Point Telephone Company.   Today the company serves the town of Middle Point, Ohio and its surrounding communities with the latest in technology and equipment to provide service such as custom calling features, dial-up internet access and high speed internet service.   Middle Point Home Telephone is a part of COM-NET with 17 other small Ohio Telephone companies.  This company provides access to the internet through the marketing name of Bright.net allowing Middle Point to provide state of the art internet services to its subscribers and in the near future a bundled IPTV service offering.

Kent Hughes, Middle Point Telephone Company’s plant manager, explained their decision to go with the Taqua 7000 was based on Taqua’s reputation and the cost of its solution.  “Taqua’s solution was by far the most cost-effective choice for our network, but we never make any decision based on cost alone.  We evaluated two other systems and did a lot of due diligence on each company and their customer support reputation.  We spoke to several customers from all the potential suppliers.  After our evaluation, we presented the findings to our board and when it was all said in done, we were most comfortable with Taqua as a company and solution.” 

The T7000 is a leader in Class 5 switch replacement and has successfully replaced virtually every brand and vintage of Class 5 switch in North America. The T7000 is based on a patented “switch-on-a-card” design, in which all the functions of a Class 5 switch or IP gateway are performed on a single circuit pack.  This patented design leads to a substantial decrease in deployment costs and the ability to expand with TDM, IP, or wireless services on a “pay as you go basis.” 
 

About Taqua®, LLC
Established in 1998, Taqua is a leading supplier of next-generation switching systems and applications.  With over 350 system deployments, the company’s solutions are deployed by wireline, cable and wireless carriers as next-generation end-office exchanges.  Taqua is the only supplier of next-generation solutions exclusively focused on small and medium sized wireline and/or wireless carriers.  Taqua is headquartered in Richardson, TX with research and development located in Hyannis, MA and Richardson, TX and all manufacturing, R&D and support based in North America.  More information on Taqua can be obtained by calling +1.972.692.1800, by email at simplify@taqua.com, or by browsing the website at www.taqua.com.