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The delivery of voice services over next generation networks has never been a comfortable journey. The business reality takes companies upwards and downwards, twists carriers in the wind of market challenges and throws them in heavy seas of competition. Konstantin Nikashov looks at the current market situation to explain how VoIP softswitches ensure the efficient performance of carriers’ networks.

VoIP adoption is in full swing worldwide. ABI Research predicts a seven-fold increase in the number of residential voice-over-IP subscribers between 2006 and 2013, while Frost & Sullivan forecasts enterprise VoIP services revenues to surge to $ 3.3 billion in 2010. VoIP is already taken for granted in Europe and the USA, while Asia and Latin America register an incredible interest in the technology. With this promising raise of demand for VoIP services telecom carriers definitely should keep their finger on the pulse of where the industry is heading.

Today’s telecom landscape offers carriers numerous margin drivers that seem irresistibly tempting to anyone in the business. VoIP calls are but packets of data travelling across the Internet. The technology can be called vir tual since it is not tied to physical locations or devices. Carriers rent out their VoIP capabilities to get higher revenues and traffic volumes. Virtualization facilitates launching ser vice rendering to an unlimited number of subscribers and adding new phone lines wherever and whenever needed. VoIP allows for flexible control over the system (either by the system administrator or subscribers) and redundancy to help service providers manage risks.

However, revenue-generating opportunities go hand in hand with industry challenges. Cable companies and Internet service providers that compete for the market share with conventional telcos take advantage of the fact that VoIP can be easily bundled up with other services. Triple- and even Quad-Play, which are included in selling propositions, increase load on networks. Therefore, carriers need to ensure that their switching platforms are able to handle huge volumes of traffic with top-level reliability.

Obviously, there are two major tasks that telcos striving to succeed should complete today. The most urgent is a choice of the basic functionality that VoIP solutions deployed on the networks must deliver. At the same time service providers should always look ahead in terms of developing their networks, so the software has to keep up with industr y upgrades. Another task is to set up criteria of the solution’s successful performance. Along with basic features some vendors offer unique capabilities that generate additional business value and significantly raise carrier’s revenues.

The galloping migration to NGN technologies that started at the break of the 21st century instigated the intensive use of VoIP softswitches as core elements of carrier’s networks. However, not all softswitches are created equal.

The primary softswitch functionality includes call routing, call control and signalling, and deliver y of media services. A lot of carriers appreciate when softswitch routing capabilities are emphasized. The whole concept of the softswitch is advantageous since it allows decoupling software from hardware. It means that new services can be added and removed easily, and the deployed solution can be operated in a flexible manner. Compared to traditional circuit switches, softswitches deliver an elaborate functionality, leave carriers with more freedom and save up to 15-20 per cent on capex and opex.

Analysts argue, nevertheless, that the move towards converged IP communications makes vendors emphasize the session border controller (SBC) functionality of VoIP softswitches.

SBCs are carrier-grade systems designed to facilitate interconnection of disparate IP networks. Carriers deploy softswitches with session border controller capabilities on the border between two adjacent networks to overcome protocol and codec conversion challenges. SBCs also allow NAT and firewall traversal, provide for access control, topology hiding, lawful interception service compliance and ensure that only authorized calls are admitted across network borders. Session border controllers give a competitive edge to ser vice providers that search ways to easily combine calls and services from multi-vendor equipment networks.

Other VoIP softswitches offered on the market today are more sophisticated. And so is the ideology of their deployment. What used to be simply a router has evolved into a complex system of traffic transit management. Best-of-breed softswitches per form intelligent routing based on a variety of route hunting criteria, keep and regularly update all the information about rates and tariffs of peering partners. On top of that, operation and QoS analysis tools of industryleading softswitches enable carriers to come up with competitive customer-driven service offerings, make profitability forecasts and select the best partners.

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