Franklin Telecom, StarComm Form Partnership

Franklin Telecom of Westlake Village has formed a joint venture with StarComm Products of Huntington Beach.

The venture will merge Franklin’s D-Mark channel bank with StarComm’s V.34-28.8 modems while eliminating any redundant functions. The new product will become part of the Franklin D-Mark family, and Franklin will handle all software development.

“StarComm has been very active in providing communications solutions for Internet service provider applications . . . [but] our customers kept pushing us for more of the network-access solution in a single product,” said Phil Sutter, StarComm’s president and chief executive officer.

“With each company doing those things that they do best, we intend to provide solutions that will dramatically reduce the per-port cost of dial-up connections.”

Frank Peters, Franklin’s president and chief executive officer, said the partnership “will lead to the acquisition of StarComm if certain financial goals are met.”