Further details on AT&T's Domain 2.0 procurement program are out, with Metaswitch today revealing that the service provider has tapped its virtual session border controller (SBC) for rollout across some of its network.

Specifics have been scant since AT&T first announced Domain 2.0 last year, naming Metaswitch among the initiative's first group of suppliers. The program aims to virtualize 75 percent of AT&T's network by 2020.

Metaswitch's SBC is called Perimeta, a possible homage to the network perimeter in the key of Crocodile Dundee. Session border controllers, which regulate and transcode VoIP and media traffic, were initially deployed on the borders between service provider networks, and have increasingly been installed between access and backbone networks as well.

Traditionally deployed as pricy hardware appliances, SBCs appear to be high on AT&T's virtualization chopping block. Experts also expect the company to make early virtualization moves in the LTE evolved packet core.

For Metaswitch, which first launched Perimeta in 2012, the Domain 2.0 nod has come as significant and lucrative validation.

"When they announced Metaswitch [as a Domain 2.0 vendor], I think a lot of people were like, 'Who?'" says Steve Gleave, senior vice president of marketing at Metaswitch.

"It's an endorsement of the fact that this is a software business, and eight years from now, people will be wondering why it was ever anything else."