Doug on IP Comm » sip trunking

Enterprise Connect 2012: GENBAND goes after the enterprise

Doug Mohney — Tue, 27 Mar 2012 16:04:26 +0000

Orlando, Florida — GENBAND, like everyone else making network boxes these days, announced it is expanding into the enterprise communications market with UC and SIP trunking solutions, including support for mobile solutions.

The company is boasting of best-of-breed components to integrate mobile and fixed consumer devices into a “secure, feature rich” communications environment for improved productivity, collaboration, and reduced cost.

The new GENBAND enterprise network solutions portfolio includes the A2 Communications Application Server, S3 Intelligent Session Border Controller, G6 Universal Gateway and C20 Converged Softswitch along with application suites such as the GENBAND A2 Mobile Office.

GENband’s Mobile Office allows enterprise employees to use their mobile phones and tablets as if they were wired directly to their business office, utilizing the same UC features available on their desktop, as well as the same dial plan, calling line ID and long distance plan as their main office phone.

Among the features cited for GENBAND’s enterprise solutions are fully integrated VoIP, video, federated and secure instant messaging, presence, applications, desktop sharing and collaboration solutions along with native client integration into Microsoft Exchange and IBM SameTime, plus integration of existing analog, digital, UNISTIM and SIP phones.

If that’s not enough, users can tap into the GENFuzion Developer Community; there’s an open UC application development eco-system and application library for highly specialized vertical market needs.

Metaswitch intros SIP session router

Doug Mohney — Fri, 18 Mar 2011 16:12:32 +0000

Out at Mobile World Congress last month, Metaswitch Networks introduced the Metaswitch SIP Session Router (SSR). It will be available directly from Metaswitch and through an OEM agreement

The SSR is a purpose-built platform built to scale and designed to support 10 million BHCA in stateless, transaction stateful and call stateful modes, allowing operators to provide different levels of service across a SIP signaling network domain.

Metaswitch is positioning the product to allow mobile operators and others to be able to scale up SIP traffic according with the coming all IP onslaught of LTE. The SSR is tightly integrated with Metaswitch’s service assurance server for all that good QoS and network monitoring goodness.

SIP Forum’s SIPit event hits the road to Europe

Doug Mohney — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 20:18:18 +0000

The SIP Forum (www.sipforum.org) will be holding its latest interoperability testing event in Kista, Sweden on May 17-21, 2010.

Hosted by Edvina and TANDBERG and sponsored by Intertex, Ingate, se, and the IPv6 Forum as an association sponsor, the five day event will conduct live, frael-world IP network testing.

Dialogic, Ingate team for PBX SIP trunking

Doug Mohney — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 21:54:55 +0000

Among the news I’m catching up on from IT EXPO East 2010 is the team up between Dialogic and Ingate to build Ingate’s SIP Trunking software module into a new enterprise border element designed to connect “virtually any” (well, it is virtual…) SIP trunk with virtually any PBX.

Goodness is expected in seamless SIP trunk deployments in legacy TDM and hybrid PBX environments, as well as new SIP-based PBX systems. Ingate’s SIP trunking software module provides enterprise session border control (SBC) along with advanced routing capabilities for connecting SIP trunks to enterprise networks and branch offices by using Ingate’s proxy-based traversal and security technology. The software is also designed to resolve interop issues between service provider SIP services and the SIP-based systems being deployed inside corporate data networks.

Dialogic’s contribution is media gateway technologies to provide the protocols and interfaces necessary to connect to a wide variety of legacy phone and network equipment, both TDM and IP. The new enterprise border element from Dialogic will combine the functions normally found in a media gateway and an enterprise session border controller into a single product.

Dialogic plans to make a first set of enterprise border elements available later this year, with configurations offering SIP trunking, legacy PBX connectivity through the usual suspects (PRI/E1/T1 and ISDN BRI).

VoIP Trunk sucks up to Digium

Doug Mohney — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 14:23:50 +0000

Gotta love a good gimmick when I see one.

Newly minted startup VoIP Trunk is offering a free SIP/IAX trunking account to all Digium employees. Don’t believe me? From VT’s blog:

“We love Digium for giving the world Asterisk. And as a small ‘thank you’, we’d like to give Digium a small gift in return. We’d like to give a VoIPTrunk SIP/IAX trunking account to all Digium employees. No charge, of course. All Digium employees can send an email to digium@voiptrunk.com from their digium.com email address and we will hook’em up!”

Of course, a few days later, there has to be a clarification–

“Hey Digium people. Guess what. There is no free SIP/IAX trunking account. It was all just a big email harvesting scam so we can incessantly spam you into buying a Fonality-green colored Snuggie!

We’re kidding. Actually we’re excited about the response we’ve received from you. We’re hard at work creating your accounts and will get back to you in short order. Promise. And no snuggie spam.”

Well, maybe VoIP Trunk can start handing out SIP trunks to bloggers… no, wait the FTC is cracking down on that, alas

Vonage spins up marketing – not HD – and business focus

Doug Mohney — Mon, 18 May 2009 15:15:33 +0000

Over the blogosphere, there’s a lot of buzz about Vonage launching its newest ad campaign focusing on “sounds good” and maybe kinda-sorta-maybe bringing HD voice into the mix. But it appears to be more wishful speculation since the company didn’t touch upon HD voice quality in its annual conference call – the real deal is a continued emphasis on a mobile app coming in the second half of this year and maybe SIP trunking.

A clearer parsing of buzz vs. intent revolves around a listen to the Q1 2009 conference call, where Vonage wants to reposition its brand image from “cheap” to “value.” The company noted that temporary price drops didn’t work as a long-term strategy in bringing in new customers, so they had to move onto the value message.

More interestingly was Vonage’s talk about new services, including a pledge to deliver mobile apps in the second half of this year on mobile smart phones – it and about a gazillion other players. Vonage will support a 3G and WiFi app for customers to dial internationally. Since 8×8 already does this sort of thing, Vonage is likely doing alpha/beta trials on an off-the-shelf app or apps right now.

Vonage talked about a “bring your own broadband” and hosted PBX offering – this smells more like SIP trunking support/service offering to me, my friends. That also seems like a no brainer – if you’ve got the switches and network, you might as well route calls on it.

The company is also going to add a service with an international number pointing to a U.S. number – again, something that is relatively old-hat rather than revolutionary.

Net-net IMHO:

1) Vonage realizes that it’s got a mature (i.e. not going to grow by leaps and bonds) customer base in consumer VoIP, so it needs to squeeze out costs on the back-end for support and on the front-end to bring in enough new customers – at a reasonable SLAC/customer acquisition cost – to offset its monthly churn rate.

2) Like everyone else in the telecommunications world, Vonage realizes it can make more money and profit from business customers. SIP trunking seems to be an obvious “winner” and I suspect they’ll cut a deal with one or more IP PBX vendors; Digium’s Switchvox seems to be an obvious no-brainer – and no AsterisktoSkype gateway required.

3) The mobile VoIP client and international number presence plays are an off-the-shelf incremental money makers; Vonage won’t get rich, but the cash will help since it is a software overlay on top of sunk costs for the existing network.

4) Vonage has enough brand and big-buck marketing budget to cause some annoyance – not fear — at other business VoIP service providers. Be interesting to see if Vonage can leverage its relationship with Best Buy to slip into Geek Squad for some SMB business VoIP penetration.

Source: Smith on VoIP and the VonageQ1 2009 results conference call