Pay-as-you-go provider Leap Communications is updating the core IP network for its Cricket Communications subsidiary, according to company officials.

After having deployed Acme Packet’s Net-Net 4000 Session Director in 2006, Cricket is upgrading to the 9000 version. The session border controller is designed for interconnections between service providers, and the 9000 specifically enables transcoding, which is the task of translating between different voice codecs or between the same codecs but using different sampling levels, officials explained. Acme’s security, load balancing and accounting features also will be used by Cricket, they said.

Cricket is also upgrading its network edge with Genband’s G9 converged media gateway and redundant C3 signaling controllers, which will help route long-distance calls and voicemail that employ signaling initiation protocols (SIP) connections, Genband wireless product line manager Sanjay Bhatia said. This will enable Cricket’s network to use the enhanced variable-rate codec which does not require transcoders, he added.