31 Oct 2005. Dublin, Ireland.

Virtual Access and Tiscali, the pan-European Internet Service Provider, today announced their partnership to deliver cost effective, managed Quality of Service over DSL (QoDSL), a key component of the Tiscali ‘Home&Away’ Teleworking Solutions portfolio.

The TW4000 DSL router, in conjunction with Virtual Access managed services, permits businesses to offer employees the opportunity to work from home while maintaining strict corporate network security access policies over a Virtual Private Network. When used in conjunction with Tiscali QoDSL and IP Telephony, enterprises can capitalise on the investment in teleworking by significantly reducing their Total Cost of Ownership (TCO).

Tiscali’s ‘Home & Away’ utilises the Virtual Access TW4000 with VA's Managed Services to provide:

• Zero touch activation and automated service provisioning, which enables Tiscali to rapidly deploy new services minimising logistics handling, service provisioning and support tasks.
• Centralised service management and support.
• Optional concurrent family access to the Internet and business access to the Virtual Private Network over a single ADSL connection.
• Optional secure wireless access within the home environment.

Nigel Ifill, Director of Sales at Virtual Access commented: ‘This solution demonstrates how the integration of converged VoIP and data services over ADSL can be used to achieve significant business benefits in today’s rapidly developing world of corporate teleworking. The Tiscali solution can remove the hidden costs of voice services for teleworkers while providing the authenticated data that security companies require when providing access to their networks from an employee’s home.’

Antongiulio La Corte, Head of Teleworker Services at Tiscali added: ‘The Home&Away proposition enables flexible working from home and from satellite offices securely and cost effectively. No off-the-shelf solution was available in the market from any other manufacturer of DSL equipment, because of compatibility issues with QoDSL and IP Telephony. The Virtual Access technology has enabled us to deploy a new portfolio of services to our business customers rapidly, and fits perfectly into our operational model.’

6 September 2005. Dublin, Ireland.

Virtual Access launches Business VoIP Management to ensure QoS for Service Providers

Virtual Access, the wholesale managed services provider, has today launched a Business VoIP Management system at the Convergence Summit 2005. This system, incorporating the Virtual Access Clearway™ technology, enables resellers to exploit broadband to deliver voice services and offer Quality of Service (QoS) where there is no QoS at the core.

Henry Brankin, CEO of Virtual Access, commented, ‘Poor QoS has long been a contributing factor to the poor take-up of VoIP by businesses and we have invested significant R&D resources to address this problem. Our Clearway™ technology controls converged voice and data jitter and latency both upstream and downstream, even for service providers who rely on the BT IP stream and have no QoS at the core.’

The Virtual Access Business VoIP Management system is centrally configured and managed. No support staff are involved in commissioning the technology, which allows the service provider’s staff to work directly on real customer issues.

The centralised reporting system removes the need for site visits to analyse customer problems and reduces downtime and management costs. The system provides a web portal to provide customised SLA and reporting information for each type of user, making it simpler for everyone to see how the service is working.

Brankin continued: ‘We want to provide a secure, high-margin offering for service providers to differentiate themselves within the market place. We believe that the QoS offered by the Business VoIP Management system will allow service providers to offer a value-added business broadband service and boost revenue streams.’

Virtual Access is a wholesale managed services provider. It provides solutions that enable service providers to deploy value-added security and IP telephony services with lowest operations cost, lowest start-up costs, maximum network visibility and unlimited network scalability. Virtual Access products are used by over twenty leading service providers, delivering regional and nationwide services such as teleworking, virtual private networking, security and financial transaction services.

28 June 2005. Dublin, Ireland.

Today sees the launch of a new appliance for the security monitoring industry, which enhances service offerings whilst substantially reducing costs. The GW8600, by Virtual Access, is designed for companies who currently provide remote video services via ISDN or leased line connection.

This new integrated solution allows security monitoring centres to perform remote CCTV surveillance via a single broadband connection whilst meeting the latest security transmission standards for Intruder (PD6662) and CCTV systems (BS8418).

Traditionally this CCTV information has been transmitted over narrowband ISDN or costly leased lines. The GW8600 platform substantially reduces end customer costs by enabling fixed price Broadband services to be exploited for these sophisticated applications.

The solution simplifies the integration of IP networking and security services by creating a self contained security network which can be managed independently to a customer's IT network.

The GW8600 integrates a centrally managed ADSL firewall/router appliance with the Webwayone 2424 security services interface.

The business benefits of the GW8600 include:

• Integrated line monitoring provides a BS8418 compliant solution for remote CCTV monitoring, saving significant recurring fees by replacement of BT Redcare / ISDN services.
• Cost effective dual-path signalling provides fail-over to alternate signalling paths such as GSM or GPRS using any service provider.
• Interfaces to external alarm panels enable the GW8600 to provide IP connectivity to existing alarm panels. This allows the dual services of CCTV monitoring and Intruder alarm monitoring to be easily combined over a secure broadband connection.
• The package includes a lead-acid battery backup system for power fail resilience and the unit is packaged in a wall mounted tamper-proof case.
• The IP installation is simplified using 'zero-touch activation' and centralised firewall management. This means that it can be brought into service remotely with minimal skills required on-site, enabling complete separation from IT networks to be maintained.

The GW8600 is further enhanced by the Virtual Access Managed Service offering, a portfolio of services which provides security monitoring companies with outsourced service provisioning, service management and support, enabling them to focus on their core business activities.

Nigel Ifill, Sales Director at Virtual Access, said: "The GW8600 allows the security monitoring industry to fully exploit broadband services for both CCTV and Intruder alarm monitoring. The benefits that you would usually expect from broadband - a faster and more cost effective always on connection - now become the means for substantial ISDN call cost reduction in CCTV monitoring applications. By channelling data from alarm panels and pictures from video cameras over a secure broadband connection, alarm receiving centres receive both visual verification of alarms and a complete real-time picture of the situation on-site."

The GW8600 is the latest addition to the recently announced GW8000 family of Secure Internet Access Router packages from Virtual Access. The GW8600 provides a self-contained solution for secure Remote CCTV monitoring over Broadband connections.

The GW8600 was developed by technology partner Asidua for Virtual Access. The appliance will be available directly from Virtual Access or its resellers.

8 March 2005. Dublin, Ireland.

New technology launched today will deliver a secure broadband connection for the corporate teleworker. The TW4000 from Virtual Access will allow both business and family access over a broadband connection without possibility of Corporate Security conflicts.

By offering separate business and family Local Area Networks (LANs), authenticated PC & User access and connection to corporate networks via IPSec VPN, the TW4000 provides controlled access to corporate networks, while allowing secure family access to the Internet.

The new technology permits businesses to cost effectively offer employees the opportunity to work from home whist maintaining strict corporate network security access policies. The TW4000 incorporates an effective means of providing Quality of Service for IP telephony. This means that when used in conjunction with a broadband telephony service, enterprises can capitalise on the investment in teleworking by significantly reducing their telephony costs.

The TW4000 is a solid state appliance with built-in ADSL interface, Stateful Inspection Firewall, and hardware VPN co-processor and QOS for VoIP providing an "all-in-one" secure access solution for Teleworking.

Nigel Ifill, Director of Sales at Virtual Access commented: "An increasing number of businesses are offering employees across all levels flexible working hours and the option to work from home. The user's home must therefore be treated like a branch office without the normal building access controls. Stringent Authentication and Data Privacy controls therefore need to be incorporated in an effective teleworking solution. Securely separated family access to the Internet can be an employee benefit well worth including in the overall proposition."

Managed Corporate Teleworker services are a new component to the Virtual Access Outsourced Service Delivery model for Service Providers using the TW4000 product suite. Benefits of the TW4000 include:

• Full support for converged voice and data services; The ability to connect multiple network devices to access Internet resources e.g. VoIP phone, commuter PC, family PCs and printers
• Separate family and commuter access ports; MAC address authentication ensures only an approved corporate PC can access the corporate port, 802.1x provides authentication of the user against corporate radius or other domain security mechanisms.
• Centralised management - this substantially reduces the cost of provisioning, management, and updating software in managed services environments.
• Intrusion detection and optional content filtering to protect the user's PC from hackers and viruses
• Full QOS; The ability to prioritise business over family traffic, and voice over data traffic to ensure that business communications are not compromised by family use.