Note: The following essay was adapted from a talk I gave to staff at Earthlink Business in January 2011.
Do we really need telephone companies, or are they a relic of the past technology, now replaced by data networks?
I had this question upon entering the voice side of the Networking Industry, coming from classical Computer Science and Data Networking. Technology history had shown that c...
ORLANDO, Metaswitch Forum. VoIP service providers are thinking more about IPv6 every day, based on my requests. Here at the Metaswitch Forum, the UK-based company is dedicating an entire session to IPv6 deployments. They'll be speaking to the 200+ carriers, large and small, assembled at this year's Metaswitch event.
The questions we hear are, "How will it affect me? How should I be planning now...
Metaswitch has been talking a lot lately about VoIP Session Border Controllers (SBCs). They recently took their DC-SBC product to the SIPit interop testing event in June. And they just published another white paper about SBCs and their role in IMS.
The Enfield company formerly called Data Connection Limited definitely makes solid software. Rumor has it some of these gents were hired to make ...
A few cases of SIP dictionary attacks using the "friendly-scanner" have been reported recently. These appear to be active attempts to steal service.
We responded today to an attack on a nationwide Service Provider. They reported up to 69 REGISTERs per second originating from an IP address in Anhui province, China. 69 REGISTERs per second is roughly the equivalent load of 5,000 users.
Unfo...
A few cases of SIP dictionary attacks using the "friendly-scanner" have been reported recently. These appear to be active attempts to steal service.
We responded today to an attack on a nationwide Service Provider. They reported up to 69 REGISTERs per second originating from an IP address in Anhui province, China. 69 REGISTERs per second is roughly the equivalent load of 5,000 users.
...
Advanced IP PBX Features Can Radically Change the Network Engineering, Support, and Costs for Hosted IP PBX Providers
Many Hosted PBX providers based on VoIP are surprised by the network load caused by the SIP Features "Shared Call Appearance" (SCA), "Shared Line Appearance", "Simultaneous Ring", "Busy Lamp Field" (BLF), or "Line State Monitoring". Both of the big Application Server players, M...
Advanced IP PBX Features Can Radically Change the Network Engineering, Support, and Costs for Hosted IP PBX Providers
Many Hosted PBX providers based on VoIP are surprised by the network load caused by the SIP Features "Shared Call Appearance" (SCA), "Shared Line Appearance", "Simultaneous Ring", "Busy Lamp Field" (BLF), or "Line State Monitoring". Both of the big Application Server players,...
In a March 16 article on The Hill, "Limbaugh prompts healthcare calls, ties up House phone lines", the US House of Representative's Chief Administrative Officer's spokesman, Jeff Ventura, is quoted:
Our phone system is nearing capacity . . . Unlike computers, which can be scaled to accommodate something like this in real time, phone lines are hard-wired, so you have your capacity and once the c...
The Acme Packet SBC is an amazing beast. I tell clients that it's basically a programming language – there's a ton of flexibility, and all kinds of complexity. There are so many ways to accomplish the same thing – which one is best?
ECG has a new, high-speed training class on Acme Packet SIP Trunking and Registration. This is a high-speed class intended to cover just the basics you need to c...
We at ECG are pleased to announce a new training course: BroadWorks Installation and Upgrades.
This class is intended to give engineeers and technicians tons of experience installing, patching, and upgrading BroadWorks. There are a numerous small rules, and a few tricks. We at ECG have been doing BroadWorks installations since R9 – back in 2002. We've done hundreds of installs for carrie...
ECG is rolling out new training courses. Another new class we have is on BroadWorks Call Processing and Troubleshooting.
This is a class for the people who really need to understand how BroadWorks does what it does. They need to know how to fix it when it breaks, and how to determine what's broken.
This class covers all the arcane dark-magic BroadWorks tools, like healthmon, ttIsql, b...
As widely reported today in press releases,
Metaswitch Networks today signaled its ambition to become a major telecommunications vendor, with the appointment of successful industry executive Kevin DeNuccio as chief executive officer. At the same time, John Lazar has been promoted to chairman.
On the conference call discussing the move, DeNuccio focused on some key points.
1. Product Li...
ECG has expanded its Network Design team to include Jonathan Stanley, B.S. C.S. This expansion brings the total design team to six Engineers, capable of designing for 250 carriers per year. This team provides complete Network Designs for VoIP networks, and also reviews of Network Designs provided by Service Providers.
ECG is a leading Network Design and Operation consultancy for the Metaswit...
When you go to the Apple store, do you see an IBM cash register? No, you see store employees using iPod Touchs to do everything.
When you go to the Apple store, do you see a PC at the back for use by the manager? No, all the business machines are Macs.
When you go to the Apple store, do you see PBX business phones? Yes -- you see a store employee talking on an Avaya PBX phone. He's telling a c...
At the BroadSoft Connections 2009 "Executive User's Forum" in Scottsdale, AZ, I got my first positive confirmation that BroadSoft has actually noticed Metaswitch.
I've written before about the two companies. BroadSoft makes quality software, while MetaSwitch makes both good software and good hardware. While the two companies are very different, both BroadSoft and Metaswitch can deliver pho...
Mark Lindsey