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Company
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Inalp Networks was founded in 1998, and by the end of the year
2001 the company had about 40 employees with sales and support
representations in Germany. Inalp Networks designs
and markets an innovative family of hardware products (SmartNodes) together
with related application firmware (SmartWare) and management software (SmartView).
The SmartNode products allow the simultaneous transmission of different
telecommunication and information services over one single (converged) data
network, which is based on the Internet protocol standard (IP). SmartNodes
also convert the non-IP signals, such as voice, to IP data packets and vice
versa. The SmartNode product range addresses the needs of telecommunication
& information service providers as well as Enterprise network managers,
who want to offer innovative services and, at the same time, reduce the cost
of delivering these services. The company developed its first products
during the 2nd half of 1998 with further development during 1999. In fall
2000, the company launched its second product line, all of which are fully
industrialized, approved and ready for volume delivery. |  |
Patton and Inalp
In 2002, Patton and Inalp Network joined forces to produce and market next-generation
VoIP and Triple Play products consummated through a manufacturing, sales, marketing and
technology-transfer agreements. During 2003, the Inalp products were incorporated into
the Patton product portfolio and made available on a global basis supported from Patton's
U.S. headquarters in Gaithersburg, Maryland. Inalp remains the "Competency Center" for
VoIP, within the Patton micro multi-national structure, and also functions as the sales,
marketing, technical service and support center for both companies' products in Europe,
Middle East and Africa (EMEA).
The team behind Inalp Networks consists of engineers who have been working
for many years in the IT, telecommunications and networking industry. In
addition to these core engineers, the team is comprised of young, ambitious
and highly motivated university graduates who have been trained in the
latest networking and telecoms technologies. The company has a number of
leading edge core competencies and technologies related to next generation
broadband networks, including TCP/IP, VoIP, ISDN, ATM, xDSL and optical
high-speed transmission. By the end of the year 2000, Inalp Networks was the
recipient of three coveted industry awards, highlighting the potential and
reputation of the company.
Market
Over the last years, the telecommunication markets in Europe have been
liberalized, which allow new service providers to offer telecommunication
and information services. This liberalization has led to the following
situation:
Competition
With the entry of many new telecommunications and Internet service providers,
the market has become very competitive. In many cases, such competition
takes place by offering the same services at a lower price, which finally
leads to a situation where these providers are unable to run a profitable
business.
Infrastructure
As a result of the liberalization, new providers are now able to build
their own network infrastructure. Fuelled by the capabilities offered by the
latest technological innovations, these providers have been able to build
broadband communication networks that open many opportunities for
introducing new services. Increased competition forces telecommunication
service providers to look for new revenue opportunities by offering new
services - differentiating themselves from the competition. Most of these
new services require the bandwidth capacities made available by broadband
technology. At the same time, service providers are forced to produce such
new services at the lowest possible cost, cutting into potential profit
margins. The considerations introduced above are the driving force for the
introduction of a new broadband network generation. By converging different
telecommunication services, such as voice, Internet access or - in future -
interactive digital TV, on one common broadband network, service providers
have the full flexibility to offer new services while driving down the total
costs of ownership. There is broad agreement within the industry that these
new broadband networks are data centric and are based on the Internet
protocol standard (IP). They are referred to as "multi-service data
networks" (MSDN) or simply "next generation IP networks".
Although based on the common network protocol IP, these networks make use of
many different transmission technologies in the backbone and - in particular
- in the access (e.g. digital subscriber lines (DSL), cable TV networks (CATV)
or fixed wireless access (FWA), also referred to as wireless local loop (WLL).
Inalp Networks is addressing this next generation broadband IP market
opportunity by designing a family of next generation access products, which
allow differentiated services at reduced costs. Our goal is:
"Enabling cost-effective service provisioning and differentiation"
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