VegaStream signs Symbio

VoIP gateway provider VegaStream has signed its first Australian channel partner, voice and data integrator Symbio Networks.

UK-based VegaStream entered the Australia and New Zealand market last month under the direction of regional sales and marketing director Chris Papaioanou.

Under the agreement, the integrator would sell and deploy VegaStream VoIP gateway products to its service provider and large enterprise customers.

Symbio -- founded in 2002 by former Lucent employees Rene Sugo and Andy Fung -- sells equipment to several tier two and tier three specialist VoIP service providers in Australia including Engin, Telecorp and My Net Fone.

Sugo, a director at Symbio, said the company selected VegaStream because it was looking for quality products in the eight to 30 port space with strong ISDN capabilities. Products from Asia targeted at the same market were sometimes of lower quality, he said.

"The Vega box has very good remote management and all the features you'd ever want," he said.

VegaStream's Papaioanou said he was specifically looking for partners that were targeting the service provider and enterprise markets, as opposed to traditional TDM (Time Division Multiplexing) resellers and integrators. "Traditional TDM voice integrators are just looking at moving boxes," he said.

VegaStream also had a track record of installing voice networks over satellite links, said Sugo. "This track record and experience is very beneficial in our market as we have service providers looking to roll out satellite IP voice services to regional and remote customers in Australia.

"These customers are yet to benefit from this new technology and application of VoIP service until now," he claimed.

Papaioanou suggested he would look for an extra two or three partners in this market. In addition to its service provider customers, Symbio also sells kit to other resellers and integrators.

VegaStream sells a range of SOHO to enterprise VoIP gateways, which connect analog and digital PBXs to IP networks and are claimed to reduce the cost of moving to IP telephony.

Products include the Vega 10/20 and 25 gateways for the home, the Vega 50 and Vega 400 for businesses -- which are claimed to deliver the benefits of VoIP without having to replace existing PBX systems.

The company was formerly part of Pace Microsystems, known worldwide as a set-top box manufacturer.

An MBO in 2003 saw Pace’s shareholding reduced to 20 percent with the remainder of the company owned by managers involved in the MBO.