Turnkey Smart Meter Software Platform for Energy and Water Use Now Supports All Major Meter Brands; Reporting and Analytics Expanded to Include Power Quality as Well as Billing

PortaOne today announced a series of upgrades and improvements to its PortaMDM metering and billing software platform for electric, gas, heating, water and sewer smart meters. Leading the improvements is an extended list of supported smart meters including models from Veris, Acuvim, Dent, Conzerv, Contrel, and Itron/Actaris; also included is an extension to PortaMDM’s data monitoring capabilities enabling customers to analyze and generate reports on power quality.

Other new functionality in PortaMDM includes support for the most common smart meter industry standards: DLMS/COSEM. DLMS (Device Language Message Specification) is a standard for modeling the functionality of a smart meter as defined by the DLMS User Association; COSEM (COmpanion Specification for Energy Metering) is the rule set governing the exchange of data with energy meters.

“Simply put, PortaMDM is a one-stop solution for every brand and every model of smart meter across all utility types—electricity, gas, heating, water and sewer,” said Roman Khalenkov, Sales and Marketing Director for PortaOne. “With one software platform, customers can monitor virtually every aspect of their utility use with an eye toward lowering expenses, improving service, and helping to reduce consumption of scarce resources. Whether for office buildings, multi-tenant housing, shopping malls, factories or other facilities, PortaMDM provides powerful, comprehensive and easy-to-understand information.”

According to Khalenkov, PortaOne’s commitment to smart meter ubiquity extends to PortaMDM licensing. With each license, users are entitled to development time by PortaOne engineers for any smart meter brand or model not currently supported. The move ensures that all meters will integrate with the PortaMDM metering and billing platform.

Power Quality Analytics

PortaMDM’s versatile billing engine lets service providers and users alike view cost and consumption according to any rating scheme in practice, such as time of day, reactive energy, or committed volume. The engine can rate consumption according to whatever configuration, rules and tariffs set by the utility or, in commercial settings, the property manager.

In addition to billing data, however, PortaMDM can retrieve and monitor any other pertinent data a given meter provides. Users can choose which measurements will be retrieved from a particular meter, specify the sampling rate, and then view graphs for those measurements both in real time and over any past time period.

PortaMDM’s new power analytics capability is especially important for monitoring quality and consistency of power delivery. With the capability, users can measure true, reactive, and apparent power in the network as well as harmonics and short-duration voltage variation (e.g., voltage sags, voltage swells and interruptions). The software can also obtain data on voltage imbalance, frequency deviation and other power quality disturbances that may impact machinery or other sensitive equipment onsite.

Free 90-Day Trial License

Each PortaMDM commercial license includes initial configuration assistance, onsite or offsite training, customizable white-label statements, ten hours of complimentary plug-in development for any model or brand of smart meter, six months of premium PortaCare (24/7 phone, IM and email) technical support, and lifelong software updates with rollback capability.

Interested may also download a fully-functional, 90-day trial license for non-commercial use. Download and installation requires no registration. For complete details and product description, along with PortaMDM distributor/reseller opportunities, go to www.portamdm.com.

Starting this week, PortaOne engineering team will conduct a series of live online webcasts for all our customers and anybody interested in the new developments of our solutions for carriers and service providers. The webcast will be co-hosted by Mike Kidik, Senior Project Manager, Klaus Haertel, Technical Sales Manager, and Andriy Zhylenko, CTO.

During the webcasts, we will be reviewing the most important of the new features recently introduced into PortaSwitch in MR24.

To access the webcast, any browser with the flash plugin installed is enough. You can access it using this URL:

Please choose "Enter as a Guest" and enter your name.

For the audio, please use the following conference bridge:

The guest code for the conference bridge is 609746.

Please note that the conference bridge is muted for all attendees. You will however be able to ask questions via Chat/Q&A at the end of the webcast.

We are looking forward to your attendance starting this Friday!

With the release of the build 1 for the Maintenance Release 24 in November, PortaOne customers can start upgrading their production systems to the latest version, which offers improved performance, stability and many new opportunities for expanding their business.

PortaSwitch Maintenance Release 24 includes:

• Updated version of the operating system (Oracle Enterprise Linux 6.1);
• New version of MySQL database server (5.1). Besides the general performance enhancements and improved handling of multiple CPUs/cores MySQL 5.1 this version also contains the table partitioning option, which significantly increases the speed of the most frequent data access operations on large tables like those storing xDR information;
• New easy-to-use web interface for end-users for managing various service parameters, notably hosted IP PBX / IP Centrex settings;
• Transparent clustering of multiple PortaBilling web servers to provide uninterrupted service for end-users or external applications via XML API;
• Tariff override, which allows you to manage a large number of similar tariffs with minimum effort and a low probability of error;
• Codec enforcement policies, so PortaSwitch administrators are able to control the acceptable / preferred codecs for each customer or a vendor;
• Advanced capacity routing, which will gradually reduce the amount of calls sent to a carrier as the load on the connection exceeds the desired capacity limit;
• Time-based bandwidth management for Internet access service;
• Auto-provisioning for Cisco SPA-504G; Linksys PAP2T; Yealink SIP-T20, SIP-T22, SIP-T26, SIP-T28P IP phones;
• Arabic and Italian languages for PortaUM IVRs;
• "Deposit files" feature in the configuration server, which allows to ensure that some user-generated files (e.g. custom IVR prompts) are maintained on the system throughout any updates;
• A new licensing module (part of the configuration server), which allows on-the-fly adding of the new servers/services to the configuration and eliminates the need for USB dongles in the rest of PortaSwitch servers;
• Integration with TransferTo for cross-country mobile top-ups and airtime remittance.

PortaOne and Yealink, a professional designer and manufacturer of VoIP Phones and IP Video Phones, today announced the successful completion of interoperability testing between PortaOne’s flagship PortaSwitch VoIP call control and subscriber management platform and Yealink’s full range of VoIP phones. Together, the two companies’ products provide a world-class VoIP telephony infrastructure suitable for all classes of enterprise use.

Yealink’s award-wining IP Phones, IP Video Phones and USB Phones are in use in over 100 countries around the world. As a professional VoIP terminal equipment manufacturer, Yealink constantly focuses on delivering IP products to extend the value of network communication. Yealink’s award-winning IP Phone portfolio, led by the SIP-T2x series enterprise HD IP Phones, is equipped with TI chipset and TI voice engine to ensure a better quality and high definition voice, and also embeds rich features including auto-provision, PoE, IPv6 and various value-added functions. Yealink IP Phone series benefits customers from its high quality, easy deployment, broad interoperability and attractive pricing.

The interoperability of Yealink IP phones with PortaSwitch, one of the industry’s most reliable and popular integrated VoIP infrastructure systems, provides ISPs with an exceptional combination. The PortaSwitch family, which includes the PortaBilling customer management application, is capable of handling the complete call control, routing, proxying, and converged VoIP billing functions of a diversified digital services company, enabling wholesale VoIP carriers and telecommunication service providers to deliver a wide variety of business models quickly and flexibly.

PortaSwitch consists of a real-time billing system, class 4/5 SIP softswitch, and media applications that deliver converged VoIP billing and provisioning, SIP call control, unified messaging, IP Centrex and hosted IP PBX, callback management, IVRs, conferencing and more.

“Yealink and PortaOne share the same commitment to provide powerful VoIP solution to customers worldwide. We are very glad to have an ideal partner like PortaOne,” said Stone Lu, Vice President of Yealink. “Both of us focus on reliable product features unique communication value, and have gained strong followings on an international level. With the interoperability test, Yealink and PortaOne make the empowered solution available to worldwide customers.”

“The combination of technologies from PortaOne and Yealink creates a significant opportunity for VoIP service providers,” said Roman Khalenkov, Sales and Marketing Director for PortaOne. “With competition stronger than ever, it becomes imperative for carriers to offer assured solutions that are customizable, cost-effective and of premium quality. We’re pleased that our carrier customers can now rely on Yealink and PortaSwitch.”

PortaOne and leading airtime remittance services provider TransferTo, today announced the successful completion of interoperability testing between PortaOne’s PortaBilling platform and the TransferTo service. Now, service providers using PortaBilling can offer their end-customers the powerful ability to top-up the prepaid phones of friends and relatives back home, enabling them to tap into a market currently responsible for $380 billion (USD) in asset transfers globally each year.

Since 2005, TransferTo has been processing top-up transactions across national borders via its global airtime network. Designed to meet the needs of emigrants, travelers and other individuals living and working outside their homelands, TransferTo currently interconnects 185 partner mobile network operators in 70 countries. End-customers now make millions of transfers via TransferTo each month via mobile phones, the Internet and participating retail locations.

The interoperability of TransferTo with PortaBilling platform brings even greater value to one of the telecom industry’s most reliable billing, provisioning and customer management platforms. Capable of acting as the nerve center of a modern VoIP telecommunications network, PortaBilling supports the launching, pricing and provisioning of a full range of telecom services.

PortaBilling performs ratings for services, creates transaction records and automatically modifies customers’ balances; furthermore it provides a unified platform for multiple services, enabling clients to charge for their voice calls, messages, and data transfer, thus effectively deploying triple-play on a single network.

“The interoperability between PortaBilling and TransferTo will allow PortaOne customers to generate immediate additional revenues from the ethnic market. This beyond-voice, value-added service is specially designed for the migrant customer segment,” said Eric Barbier, TransferTo’s CEO . “While improving service provider’s ARUP, customer loyalty and brand visibility, remote top-up also solves a problem faced by most migrant customers. Not unlike classic money remittance channels, international top-ups are the ideal solution for cost-effective small value transfers.”

“Hundreds of millions of people worldwide seek the kind of service TransferTo provides, making its availability alongside PortaBilling a strong market advantage for our VoIP service providers,” said Roman Khalenkov, Sales and Marketing Director for PortaOne. “We’re excited to be able to offer this powerful new service—one that will significantly enhance the competitive position of PortaBilling subscribers in countries around the world.”