Israeli companies Orckit and Tdsoft have announced they will cooperate in the transmission of telephone calls, based on the ADSL services provided by Orckit. Under the cooperation agreement, Tdsoft's product VoNGATE will be integrated with Orckit's ADSL product, and the two companies will also bid for tenders together. Orckit and Tdsoft announced their cooperation at the CeBIT exhibition in Hannover, Germany.
ADSL is a technology enabling the provision of high-speed Internet services and broadband access over the copper infrastructure used by large telecom companies (such as Bezeq). Tdsoft develops and produces solutions combining data communications and telephony.
The company has developed VoNGATE, an access portal to telephony services that enables service providers to offer their subscribers telephony services combined with an Internet service, using advanced access systems, such as cable modems and WLL wireless systems.
At CeBIT, Orckit offers a live presentation of telephone call transmission through ADSL. Tdsoft's product VoNGATE is on display in the booths of several leading companies with which Tdsoft cooperates, including Lucent, Alcatel, Ericsson, and US cable company Com21.
The agreement with Ericsson includes joint access to tenders. Alcatel wants to sell Tdsoft's product under its own brandname, and Com21 has signed a marketing agreement with Tdsoft. In the course of the exhibition, an announcement was put out that the two companies would market a joint product.
Other companies using Tdsoft's product to provide telephony using their broadband products are ECI Telecom, which also has a cooperation agreement with Tdsoft, and Rad Data Communications.
Tdsoft was set up in 1994 as a subsidiary of Teledata (which was bought two years ago by US company ADC). The company's present ownership structure is: ADC (about 51%), founders Yossi Albagli (CEO), Eytan Radian and Arie Shaham (about 30%), employees (some 8%), and funds Gemini, Apax, and Belgian fund Catalyst (about 12%).
Published by Israel's Business Arena on 27 February, 2000