- Metaswitch is officially back in action, Alianza says
- The vendor just debuted three new product packages, with Metaswitch at the center of its Core offering
- It also unveiled an Intelligent Communications Fabric that will enable operators to embed new AI tools in their voice services
NAVIGATE 2025, SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH – What is Alianza planning to do with Metaswitch? That was the question on everyone’s mind here in Salt Lake, even nine months after Alianza announced a deal to buy the neglected voice assets from Microsoft in late 2024.
The message from Alianza at the event was loud and clear: Metaswitch isn’t going anywhere. But the shape of what Alianza hopes to deliver to customers using those assets is changing radically.
First things first. Back when Microsoft owned Metaswitch, it threw customers into panic mode when in mid-2024 it announced end-of-life dates for an array of Metaswitch products. On stage at the event, however, Alianza CTO Dag Peak said not only does the company plan to support Metaswitch’s platforms for the foreseeable future, but it also plans to continue iterating on them with feature upgrades, security patches and regulatory enhancements.
“You can sit on those platforms for many years to come if it works for you,” he said to a roar of applause.
Metaswitch’s assets will now be part of Alizana’s new Core product category, one of three the company unveiled at the event. Core gives operator customers full control over their network architecture and operations.
The other categories include One, Alianza’s cloud-native, full stack, white glove offering; and Fusion, a sort of happy medium that gives operators an option to have Alianza host and manage network details like availability, capacity scaling and disaster recovery without totally ceding control as with the One offering.
Peak said the whole point of the new product packaging is to meet customers where they are on their cloud journey without shoehorning them into a business model that doesn’t work for them.
“Some of you want to build networks with maximum control and customization – that’s Core. Some of you want that same Core functionality and reliability without the operational complexity – that’s Fusion. And some of you want that complete cloud communications experience without any infrastructure management – that’s One,” Peak said. “One journey, multiple paths.”
Voice revolution
The destination for all of those paths is Alianza’s Intelligent Communications Fabric. Freshly unveiled at the event, the fabric comprises the experience layer of the network (think the services offered to customers), the complex infrastructure and a shiny new orchestration layer designed to serve as a bridge between the other two. In a nutshell, Alianza is using APIs in the orchestration layer to integrate traditionally isolated services INTO voice services themselves.
Availability of the fabric is slated for sometime next year, executives told Fierce.
The APIs will allow Alianza, operators and third-party developers to tap into the network and integrate services in a way that wasn’t really feasible before.
For instance, rather than being met with a preset menu when calling your dentist’s office, the dentist will be able to connect their back end customer system to their phone system. So, when a client calls, the system can automatically see they have an appointment coming up and prompt them to confirm or reschedule it.
Or say an operator wants to offer customers fraud protection using AI. The service can tap into network data to see if a number has a good reputation or if it commonly calls the customer in question to assess the risk level. If the call is deemed safe enough to complete, the service can then listen in on the call for key indicators of fraud (requests for passwords or payments with gift cards, for instance) and warn the recipient of suspected fraud.
Fierce Network's take
So, what’s Fierce’s take? It raises three key questions.
Voice relevance
First, is voice really still relevant? Should operators really be focused on squeezing revenue out of voice customers who seem to be slowly dwindling in number?
In a pre-show call with Fierce, Alianza CEO Brian Beutler (pictured above) said the answer is emphatically yes. He noted there are still well over a trillion voice calls made every year and pointed to voice communication as a vast, untapped treasure trove of data that can be used to enable new AI tools.
We asked several attendees at the show the same question on background and several told us what while voice has indeed declined, there’s still plenty of value left to be captured. The attendees pointed especially to persistent landline connections in small towns and with businesses of all sizes. One also argued that Gen Z – with its hard questioning of how the modern world works – could end up sparking a resurgence in voice.
The API shift
The second big question we had was if Alianza can pull off the API shift in a way global mobile operators haven’t been able to.
Asked how what it is doing is different from what mobile players have been trying – and failing – to do with network APIs, Beutler said it’s all about having an actual business case.
“The analogy is not lost on us. We think what is missing in the network API story is a real true business case. Service providers don’t win over the next decade by eeking out another 3% of efficiency by doing things like adding phone numbers or swapping SIMs more effectively,” he said. “They’re going to win by driving revenue through real customer experiences that are valuable enough that customers will pay them more.”
Privacy angle
Finally, there’s the massive question of what injecting AI directly into voice calls means for customer privacy.
Both Beutler and Peak acknowledged this is a tricky issue and one that’s important to get right. For now, the solution is to have services utilizing AI ask for consent before they get to work. So, for instance, if your architect has an AI assistant integrated into his business line, you’ll hear a prompt when you call explaining that and saying you can stay on the line to consent or hang up if you don’t.
For us, this question is less one of “can it be solved legally” and more one of “will this play well with the general public.” And on that front we’ll just have to wait and see.
Update 9/22/25 8:13 pm ET: This story has been updated to clarify what makes up the Intelligent Communications Fabric.