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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.
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.
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:
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.
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).
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Company History
Patton and Inalp
