BroadSoft, Inc, a provider of Voice over IP (VoIP) application software, has announced that Optimus Telecomunicações, S.A., a Portugal based GSM/UMTS (News - Alert) mobile operator, has chosen BroadSoft's BroadWorks VoIP application platform to deliver a new residential VoIP offering.

Combining mobile services with web-based social networking feature, the new service is targeted mainly at young, active consumers across Portugal, the company said. Subscribers of the residential service can join an Optimus online community called TAG to access additional features, including presence over IM, with unlimited usage.

Pointing out that Optimus has successfully deployed BroadWorks to offer voice services to enterprises through business trunking, Paulo Plácido, Optimus's core and services engineering director said, "With the range of features that BroadWorks enables us to offer, we believe this is a service that younger consumers especially find compelling."

Optimus had launched Optimus TAG Community service in April 2008 and has, according to the company, already attracted a large subscriber base.

Optimus has developed a webphone that extends the subscriber's service to a PC while keeping the same customer identity. With this service, subscribers can use the same phone number for both mobile and webphones.

According to BroadSoft (News - Alert), features available to subscribers who send or receive calls on the webphone include: instant messaging; Short Message Service (SMS); Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS); video calling; voicemails and IM received simultaneously on both devices. The service also gives subscribers the ability to import contacts from Microsoft (News - Alert) Outlook.

"This innovative offering by Optimus resonates with younger users by incorporating the mobile phone with additional features that are made available with a webphone," said Mike Wilkinson, BroadSoft's director of marketing for the Europe, Middle East and Africa region.

Wilkinson added that with the carrier-grade BroadWorks voice solutions, BroadSoft was able to help the industry and specifically Optimus benefit from the Web 2.0 innovation.

According to company sources, the solutions for the Optimus service are Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) based over IP Multimedia Subsystem (News - Alert) (IMS) architecture. They added that the BroadWorks platform is compliant with both IMS and the SIPconnect standard.

BroadSoft, launched as a privately-held company in 1998, creates VoIP application software that enables telecommunications service providers to offer advanced calling features to enterprise and residential customers.

The BroadWorks platform has a variety of VoIP applications, including Hosted Unified Communications, Mobile PBX (News - Alert), Business Trunking and residential broadband services fully integrated into a single VoIP application platform.