Mission

Acme Packet (NASDAQ: APKT) is the leader in session delivery network solutions. We enable the delivery of interactive communications—voice, video and multimedia sessions—and data services across IP network borders.

Session border control is a service delivery architecture encompassing many different product categories. Our Net-Net family of session border controllers, session-aware load balancers, session routing proxies and multiservice security gateways supports multiple applications in enterprise networks and fixed line, mobile, over-the-top and application service provider networks.

These applications range from VoIP trunking to hosted enterprise and residential services to fixed-mobile convergence. Our products satisfy critical security, service assurance and regulatory requirements in these networks and support multiple protocols—including SIP, H.323, MGCP/NCS, H.248 and RTSP—and multiple border points, including service provider access and interconnect and enterprise access and trunking.

Distribution & support

Acme Packet sells to and supports its customers using both direct and indirect channels. We leverage the expertise of over 220 channel partners, including the following organizations that operate worldwide:

Partners

Acme Packet partners with solution resellers, systems integrators, complementary equipment manufacturers, professional services companies and consultants to make session border control solutions a reality.

Financial highlights

Founded in August of 2000, Acme Packet is a publicly traded company listed under the symbol “APKT” on NASDAQ. For more information, visit our investor relations section.

Management

Acme Packet has attracted seasoned management talent from high-growth startups and leading telecom, IP networking and circuit-switched networking companies:

• Andy Ory—CEO, president and co-founder
• Patrick MeLampy—CTO and co-founder
• Peter Minihane—CFO
• Dino Di Palma—COO
• Marianne Budnik—CMO
• Steven Aulds—SVP, engineering
• Seamus Hourihan—SVP, corporate strategy
  
• Erin Medeiros—SVP, professional services
• John Shields—VP, manufacturing & operations

Employees

Acme Packet has 752 employees in over 35 countries worldwide.

Contact information

Acme Packet, Inc.

100 Crosby Drive
Bedford, MA 01730
USA
Telephone: 1-781-328-4400
Fax: 1-781-275-8800
info@acmepacket.com

Our solutions are used by four different market segments to deliver trusted, first-class interactive communications—voice, video and multimedia sessions—and data services across internet protocol, or IP, network borders.

Fixed line service providers use Acme Packet solutions to deliver services to residential, small and medium business and enterprise customers over their cable, DSL, FTTx, Ethernet and leased line access network borders. They are also used to deliver these services across their interconnect and peering borders to other service providers for PSTN termination, IP transit or IP service connections to other subscriber populations. Our solutions support a wide range of services including basic voice, IP Centrex, hosted unified communications and SIP trunking.

Mobile service providers use Acme Packet solutions to deliver interactive communications and data services to their mobile subscribers over 3G, LTE, femtocell, WiFi and WiMAX access network borders. They are also used to deliver services across their interconnect and peering borders to other service providers for PSTN termination, IP transit, roaming subscribers and connections to other subscriber populations. Acme Packet offers specific solutions for SIP services over 3G, GSMA Rich Communications Suite and IPX, Voice-over-LTE (VoLTE), macro RAN offload, and fixed-mobile convergence. Our solutions support services ranging from basic voice to presence-enabled voice, interactive video, messaging and collaboration, and Internet data service.

Over-the-top and application service providers (OTT/ASPs) use Acme Packet solutions to deliver services and applications from their data centers to users over the public Internet or the managed IP network of a third-party network service provider. These services range from basic voice to presence-enabled voice, video, messaging and collaboration delivered over both fixed line and mobile networks for both consumers and businesses. They also include a wide variety of hosted services for enterprises and service providers such as audio, video and web conferencing, outsourced contact centers, SIP trunking, session recording and E911.

Enterprises, including government agencies and contact centers, use Acme Packet solutions at SIP trunking borders to connect to: the PSTN, federated enterprise and consumer groups; outsourced contact centers and hosted services such as audio, video and web conferencing; hosted CRM & BPM applications; session recording systems; and E911 infrastructure. They are also used to secure the public Internet border connecting remote workers and offices. In extremely security-conscious organizations, they are also used to secure IP PBX and UC servers from internal employees located on the enterprise campus LAN and in offices connected via a private WAN such as MPLS VPNs. Our solutions support a wide range of services and applications such as basic voice, video conferencing, telepresence and presence-enabled unified communications and collaboration.

For more information about the value we bring to our target markets, visit our web sections for:

• Fixed line service providers
• Mobile service providers
• Enterprise, contact centers and government
• Over-the-top and application service providers (OTT/ASPs)

Acme Packet has over 1,600 customers in 107 countries, including 90 of the top 100 service providers in the world, 20 of the top global MSOs, 36 of the Fortune 100 and nearly 550 enterprises, contact centers and government organizations.

Acme Packet’s Net-Net family of products delivers trusted, first class services for fixed line, mobile and over-the-top (OTT) service providers, as well as enterprises, contact centers and government networks. Our products represent the central elements in a new type of overlay network called the session delivery network.

Session delivery network bridge the gap between applications and services—including the endpoints and devices that run those applications or subscribe to those services—and the underlying IP transport network. By applying a broad range of controls to interactive communications, as well as data application traffic, Session delivery network help organizations overcome the limitations inherent in using the Internet, or other best-effort unsecured IP networks, as a transport for real-time, business-critical interactive and data communications.

Session border controllers

Session border controllers (SBC) provide critical control functions to deliver high quality interactive communications—voice, video and multimedia sessions—across IP network borders. A “session” is any real-time, interactive voice, video or multimedia communication using IP session-layer signaling protocols such as SIP, H.323, MGCP, Megaco/H.248 or RTSP. The “border” is any IP-IP network border such as those between service provider and enterprise, residential or mobile customer/subscriber; or between two service providers. The “control” functions satisfy requirements in the areas of security, interoperability, availability, quality and regulatory compliance.

Acme Packet’s Net-Net SBC product family includes the Net-Net Session Director (SD), Net-Net Signaling Firewall (SF) and Net-Net Border Gateway (BG). The Net-Net SD integrates signaling and media controls in a single standalone system, while the Net-Net SF and BG operate as “decomposed” SBCs; The Net-Net SF delivers security and other SIP signaling controls. The Net-Net BG operates in tandem with an external signaling element to control only the media within interactive communications sessions. Net-Net SBCs operate on Acme Packet’s purpose-built hardware platforms as well as a number of 3rd party platforms offered and supported by Acme Packet OEM partners.

Session managers

Session managers provide essential session control functions to deliver trusted, first-class voice, video and unified communications in fixed line, mobile and enterprise networks. For service providers, it is the central node in the IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) signaling plane and interacts with many other elements to provide authentication, registration management, session and application maintenance and charging for VoIP and other IP interactive communication services. For enterprises, it is the core control engine for unified communications, IP contact center and VoIP applications.

Acme Packet’s Net-Net SIP Multimedia-Xpress (SMX) adds session manager functions to Acme Packet’s Net-Net access SBC to create an integrated session delivery solution. Net-Net SMX reduces the complexity and cost of delivering high-value, revenue generating SIP multimedia services and applications for fixed line, mobile and over the top service providers as well as enterprises and contact centers.

Session routing proxies

Session routing proxies (SRP) centralize and consolidate routing control for SIP-based voice, video, IM and multimedia sessions. SRPs directs traffic to and from other SIP signaling elements in the network including mobile switching centers, CLASS 4 and 5 softswitches, CSCF servers and access and interconnect session border controllers. SRPs reduce costs by addressing scaling problems when SIP routing decisions become complex and require a dynamic, real-time routing decision for each individual session for multiple sources and destinations within a network.

Acme Packet’s Open Session Routing architecture features the Net-Net Session Router working in conjunction with a world-class ecosystem of routing database products and services from Acme Packet partners. An evolutionary leap over distributed routing architectures using MSCs and softswitches, the Net-Net Session Router and OSR dramatically boosts network efficiency, intelligence while reducing capital and operational expenditures.

Diameter signaling controllers

With the growth of Long Term Evolution (LTE) and IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) networks, Diameter signaling is becoming more prevalent. Diameter exchanges authentication, charging, QoS and mobility information for network attachment and for each subscriber data, voice, video or multimedia session. Diameter signaling controllers (DSCs) enable the exchange of this critical subscriber profile information within service provider LTE and IMS networks and across LTE network borders. By aggregating and controlling Diameter transactions, DSCs reduce costs, streamline networks and assure availability for LTE and IMS networks.

The Acme Packet Net-Net Diameter Director leverages Acme Packet’s Net-Net OS software to offer industry-leading DSC capabilities in terms of signaling control, security, scalability, dynamic routing and carrier-class availability. Net-Net Diameter Director supports multiple applications including core Diameter routing, LTE data and VoLTE roaming and federated service delivery.

Multiservice security gateways

Multiservice security gateways (MSGs) securely connect subscribers to mobile voice and data services over the untrusted Internet or wireless access networks. As a “gateway” they are deployed at the border between the mobile network and the Internet or unmanaged broadband access network. They are “multiservice” in that they transport both voice and data services and address a wide array of fixed mobile convergence solutions, including UMA and SIP, WiFi and small cell. The “security” function authenticates endpoints, secures the voice and data traffic within IPsec tunnels to ensure privacy and protect against theft, and defends against DoS/DDoS attacks on the mobile service infrastructure at the TCP/IP and IPsec networking levels to deliver non-stop service.

Acme Packet’s Net-Net Security Gateway offers industry-leading security gateway capabilities in terms of architectural flexibility, capacity, performance, functionality, carrier-class availability and manageability.

Session-aware load balancers

Session-aware load balancers (SLB) enable linear, non-disruptive scaling of capacity to 2 million subscribers from a single SIP IP address. They support the delivery of any IMS, RCS or NGN service; any SIP application - voice, video, presence, messaging and multimedia; over any mobile or fixed line access network including the Internet. SLBs are deployed in conjunction with SBCs configured to create a SBC cluster. The SBC clusters provide dynamic, adaptive load balancing of subscribers based on SBC availability and health score; and subscriber capacity, load, and session state. SBC clusters scale subscriber capacity without requiring architectural forklifts or network disruptions.

Acme Packet’s Net-Net SLB session-aware load balancer features carrier-class high-availability to ensure no loss of active sessions in the event of single system failures. Deployed in a high-availability (HA) pair, it checkpoints configuration and cluster state. As all cluster elements are SIP subscriber and session-aware, the Net-Net SLB and its associated SBC clusters provide a superior solution in terms of scalability, dynamic adaptive load balancing, redundancy and management compared to traditional Layer 3/Layer 5 Web load balancers and SIP redirect servers.

Application session controllers

Application session controllers (ASC) enable enterprises, service providers and third-party developers to streamline business processes by integrating their applications with IP communications services. By adding interactive voice, video, instant messaging and multimedia communications to applications, enterprises can eliminate inefficiencies and improve collaboration, productivity and customer service.

Acme Packet’s Net-Net Application Session Controller (ASC) is an advanced middleware platform that leverages existing Web development frameworks and toolsets to communications-enable business processes or Web pages. A single development project yields support for a wide range of IP communications infrastructure vendors and systems.

Session recorders

Because they are designed for recording IP voice, video, chat and unified communications sessions, IP session recorders (SR) overcome the limitations of traditional call recording solutions by capturing, securing, archiving and managing IP session-based communications for regulatory compliance and quality assurance.

Acme Packet’s Net-Net Interactive Session Recorder (ISR) is a complete software-based IP session recording solution that stores and archives voice, video and multimedia communications. Specifically designed to overcome the unique challenges associated with IP interactive session recording, the highly-extensible, feature-rich Net-Net ISR lets enterprises, contact centers and service providers enjoy state-of-the-art session recording in IP-based communications infrastructures. The Net-Net ISR is ideal for regulatory compliance and quality assurance recording applications as well as for enabling new cloud-based session recording services. With flexible open Web 2.0 APIs, the Net-Net ISR enables customers and 3rd parties to quickly and easily integrate session recording into business applications.

Our session border controller (SBC), session-aware load balancer (SLB), multiservice security gateway (MSG), Diameter signaling controller (DSC) and session routing proxy (SRP) configurations leverage the rich functionality of Net-Net OS on the industry’s most comprehensive and scalable portfolio of hardware platforms. The brand name "Net-Net" reflects the role of our products in interconnecting IP networks to deliver trusted, first-class communications services and applications.

 

Net-Net 3820 platform

The Net-Net 3820 is our SBC and SRP solution for smaller service providers, government defense and security–focused agencies, small enterprises and smaller sites within larger organizations. The NEBS-compliant Net-Net 3820 features Acme Packet’s custom hardware design and offers dual AC or DC power supplies for customers who require carrier-class hardware and flexible configuration options in an entry-level solution.

Net-Net 4500 platform

The carrier-class Net-Net 4500 platform delivers unmatched performance and configuration capabilities in a 1RU form factor. It supports all Acme Packet Net-Net SBC, SLB, MSG, DSC and SRP configurations, functions and features supported by Acme Packet’s Net-Net OS. The Net-Net 4500 satisfies all of the functionality, scalability, availability and manageability requirements of service providers, enterprises and contact centers and government security and defense agencies.

Net-Net 9200 platform

Acme Packet’s Net-Net 9200, introduced in 2005, offers our highest levels of performance, capacity and availability for service provider and enterprise deployments in a single 7 RU hardware chassis-based system. The Net-Net 9200 also supports high-capacity transcoding and transrating for a wide selection of wireline and wireless codecs and can be configured as a dedicated transcoding gateway for standard and high-definition voice services and application.

Net-Net 14000 platform

Net-Net 14000 is a highly-scalable solution for large next-generation service providers. Based on industry-standard Advanced Telecommunications Computing Architecture (ATCA), the Net-Net 14000 operates Net-Net OS and integrates Acme Packet’s custom hardware in ATCA-compliant front card and rear transition modules to minimize cost of ownership in central office environments while offering per-module or per-shelf configuration flexibility that easily supports millions of subscribers per shelf.

Management systems

Net-Net Central

Acme Packet’s Net-Net Central is our fully-integrated, extensible management platform for service providers and enterprises. It simplifies the management of a wide range of Acme Packet products and solutions through a variety of integrated add-on management applications, including the Net-Net Central Element Manager and Route Manager. Net-Net Central features a highly scalable, high availability architecture designed to accommodate small to very large network deployments.

Net-Net EMS

Our standalone element management system (EMS) for the Net-Net family supports all required configuration, fault, performance and security management functions for multiple border elements in multiple networks through an easy-to-use, browser-based graphical user interface. Net-Net EMS can efficiently integrate into existing and next-generation operational support systems through industry-standard interfaces.

Naming a company is one of the toughest decisions for a startup. A great name should be memorable and help tell your story. And the name should be near the beginning of the alphabet—or at least before Cisco, if you are in the telecom field. We based our name and logo on our story, and it was blatantly obvious the only choice was Acme Packet:

• \Ac"me\, n. - the highest point or level attainable [syn: apex, height, elevation, peak, pinnacle, summit, superlative, top, vertex]
• \pack"et\, n. - The unit of data sent across an IP network. Most correctly used to describe application layer data units.

The intersecting peak and packet represent interconnecting networks, where we enable interactive communications across IP networks. The star represents the light we shine on your networking and business challenges. The gold color represents the "gold bits," or valuable premium communications, we help you deliver.

The teal blue color represents the modern professionalism we apply to solving your problems. The italic font represents the forward-looking, visionary team we have assembled. The lower case text represents our approachable team that works with you to achieve your business goals of increased revenues and profits.

That's it. Now you know the entire "story" behind our name, logo and mission.