Webinars

Technology options to protect your customers against scam calls, boost your revenue, and protect your business.

Nuisance robocalls to your customers are a menace to Voice Service Providers -- but did you know you can stop those calls from reaching your customers? 

Hear from a panel of the leading technology companies with options to protect your customers against inbound robocalls. Whether you offer SIP trunking, UCaaS Hosted PBX, or have an enterprise network, you can effectively manage & block inbound nuisance calls.

Out of the top 23 UCaaS / Hosted PBX vendors identified by Gartner, only four can protect their customers against inbound robocalls. Only four!  This is a great opportunity for UCaaS vendors to differentiate their services based on the quality of inbound protection, along with the ability to report on blocked calls and to ensure that all desirable calls. 

This change brings new revenue possibilities, including up to 15% revenue increase per user at one US UCaaS leader.

Every vendor provides unique solutions. ECG can integrate with any robocalling mitigation vendor into your existing network.

• Relationship between Robocall Mitigation, SHAKEN/STIR, and Spam Calling

• Market Opportunity for UCaaS and SIP Trunking

• Revenue Generation Examples -- looking at what's in the market today

• Key questions raised by spam call blocking:

  • A New Spam Mailbox?

  • Emergency 911 callback?

  • Rural Call Completion?

  • "Reasonable Analytics"

Panelists:

• Rich Quattrocchi is Vice President of Digital Transformation at Mutare. He holds six patents and is working his seventh for work at Mutare.

• Bart Pesavento is the Director of Product Marketing at Neustar and is responsible for driving the go-to-market strategy for Neustar’s Trusted Call Solutions and Order Management portfolios.

• Ray Muscatell is Vice President of Worldwide Sales, and leads the sales teams and is responsible for sales for RedShift Networks UCTM product portfolio.

• Alec Fenichel is a software engineer, and leads the design and operations of TransNexus’s cloud based service platform, ClearIP.

• Greg Blumstein is the founder of TrueCNAM and the TrueSpam service.

• Gerry Christensen is responsible for leading new business development and strategic relationships at YouMail.

Cisco BroadWorks is the software platform for UCaaS Providers used by some of the top Collaboration providers in the world. Traditionally it is installed in an engineered data center environment where service providers control the servers, routing, switching, and security.

But public cloud providers like Amazon Web Services (AWS), Azure, and Google Cloud raise questions: should BroadWorks be operated in a data center or a cloud provider? Are Voice Service Providers missing out if they keep their systems in a data center? 

Voice telecommunications in the United States is a service with regulated reliability requirements; outages affecting 911 or large populations must be reported to the FCC and can bring fines and penalties. We'll discuss how this might affect your thinking on choosing a data center or public cloud environment.

Integration with security appliances like firewalls and load balancers, and SIP devices like Session Border Controllers, is also substantially different in a cloud environment. We'll discuss the networking and connection differences between data centers and public cloud providers.

Top News: We'll also bring you an independent report of the top news on Cisco BroadWorks, including updates from Cisco and from partners.

In this presentation, we'll examine the key considerations for this question focused on Amazon Web Services (AWS):
 

• What are the vital hosting requirements you need to run a BroadWorks platform reliably?
• Does AWS provide the fundamentals expected for a production BroadWorks implementation?
• Cisco famously operates their own BroadWorks system -- how do they host and build their platform?
• How do Ansible Playbooks relate to cloud or data center hosting decisions?
• Do hybrid or multi-cloud strategies make sense, where engineers deploy BroadWorks between both data-center and cloud environments?
• What's different about integrations with security devices and session border controllers?

Join us for a free webinar to discuss the latest for BroadWorks

• Focus on BroadWorks Service Providers and Enterprises
• Deep Dive: New capabilities for robocalling mitigation with BroadWorks using the innovative SHAKEN/STIR support built in
• Updates on Webex for BroadWorks & new Vendor Integrations

This webinar discusses what should be in a great Robocall Mitigation Plan and how it helps you to protect your customers against against nuisance and robocalling, and allows their calls to succeed to the outside world.

• Defining a Robocall Mitigation Plan
• Origination vs Termination -- Definitions
• Key Goals for Protecting Customers - Deliverability, Liability, Reliability, Blocking Scam, and Trustworthy Caller ID
• Know Your Customer - Customer Vetting
• Industry Traceback Group Cooperation
• Contract & Terms of Service Enforcement - Including Shutting Down Sources
• Engineering Your Network to Fight Robocalling - Concurrent Calling, Calls-Per-Second Rates, and Number Screening
• Reasonable Analytics - Automating the defense of your customers
• Customer Types - SIP Trunking, APIs, and SIP Endpoint Users
• Nuisance Calling Prevention - Stopping the Scams and the Spam

Hosted by: Jon Chleboun, SMTS

Presenter: Mark Lindsey, SMTS / VP Engineering, ECG

As Cisco is rapidly phasing out the UC-One Connect product, BroadWorks service providers need Webex for BroadWorks to offer integrated meetings and calling solutions. But Webex brings its own learning curve and challenges:

- Now you need to create and manage Webex users in addition to BroadWorks users
- Webex “Partner Hub” and “Control Hub” - You can master these complex tools
- Push Notifications have a different flow
- New XSP Application - Authentication Service
- Mobile app lifecycle is simplified, with Cisco in the driver's seat

This webinar will cut right to the crux elements of the deployment process - the inflection points that can make it either a smooth turnup or a slow nightmare.

This webinar was recorded live on May 18, 2021

Presenter: Jon Chleboun, SMTS.

This Webinar is a collaboration of ECG and Marashlian & Donahue LLC, THE COMMLAW GROUP.

In February, the FBI and DHS warned the industry that Telephony Denial of Service (TDoS) attacks are a pressing issue, and affect the availability of emergency services. These attacks can compromise the safety of a community by blocking access to critical help just when it’s needed. But the rules that allow service providers to block illegal robocalls specifically forbid blocking of calls to 9-1-1. What options would a service provider have?

This webinar will cover:

1. Legal obligations to deliver 9-1-1 calls versus other nuisance robocalls 

2. The legal options that are available for protecting services 

3. Look at technical options to comply with DHS and FBI regulations

4. Review solutions available in the marketplace that can support your efforts to protect 9-1-1 emergency services

Robert Jackson is Special Counsel at Marashlian & Donahue, LLC and brings with him a wealth of knowledge and experience across a broad spectrum of communications and technology issues. rhj@CommLawGroup.com

Mark Lindsey is VP of Engineering at ECG, Inc and a Senior Member of Technical Staff.  He has over 25 years of experience with network design, installation and training.  mark@ecg.co

ECG Quarterly BroadWorks Briefing with special guest: Scott Hoffpauir, BroadSoft's Co-Founder and CTO

Join ECG as we dive into Cisco's latest tools for supporting your BroadWorks platform. Plus, get up-to-date current news on the latest changes in BroadWorks and the ecosystem for Service Providers and Enterprises.

ECG provides frequent updates for BroadWorks operators, giving you fresh, independent insights into innovations, changes, and risks. With over 20 million people worldwide depending on BroadWorks, it's the Number One platform for cloud calling. ECG has been providing independent technical services on BroadWorks since 2002.

• Latest News on Changes in BroadWorks

• Special focus: New services provided by Cisco to help engineering teams support their networks 

• Review of the BroadWorks operator ecosystem

Panelists: Jon Chleboun, Brian Tate, Sherwin Crown, Mark Lindsey

Is this the end of CentOS going forward? Because of Red Hat's new policy, CentOS for production may not be a good option beyond 2021.  Red Hat just announced a major policy change, radically reworking CentOS and bringing dramatic changes for those who depend on CentOS for production servers. No longer will CentOS be proven software, released after all testing is complete. Instead, CentOS Stream will be a preview release. 

Speakers:
Sherwin Crown (SMTS, MS Computer Science/Cybersecurity)
Mark Lindsey (SMTS, MS Computer Science/Networking).

Discussion Topics:

• What are the details of Red Hat's plans for CentOS?

• What options will be available for Red Hat operating systems?

• Are there any simple steps we can take to avoid rebuilding VMs/servers? 

• How do you build systems with the risk of future changes related to Red Hat and CentOS?

• If CentOS users do nothing - what are the downsides of running without updates? 

Staying Informed on Cisco BroadWorks Has Never Been Easier! ECG has been building and growing BroadWorks platforms since 2002, supporting global network growth and cybersecurity. Join the team as we unpack the changes with Top News, Cisco's Directions, Automation, Webex, and your live Q&A.

BroadWorks continues to evolve under Cisco's leadership. In the US and worldwide, mobile requirements and new regulations change the requirements for carriers, from privacy to emergency calling. Voice is rapidly moving to Cloud providers, and user features continue to evolve to meet customer demand. The changes and new features in Cisco BroadWorks are built to accommodate this evolution.

Panelists: Mark Lindsey, Brian Tate, and Jon Chleboun

- Top News on Changes in Cisco BroadWorks
- Discussion on Webex for BroadWorks and future for UC-One and Collaborate
- Your Questions Answered! Live Q&A
- Platform, servers, and features discussed
- Calling, Devices, Mobile Apps, Network Designs, and Cybersecurity
- Engineers analyze the features and discuss experience with real-world implementations
- Info for conventional SIP and IMS implementations

In the rush to deploy SHAKEN for legal requirements, it can be easy to focus on success modes only, where you look only at what's working instead of what's possible. This is encouraged when you are asked "When will we be compliant?" with the new laws and regulations.

How do you avoid short-circuiting the true legal requirement of SHAKEN, as well as the obligations to society to improve the trustworthiness of the telephone network? This presentation will equip you with a straightforward checklist of nine key tests that every SHAKEN deployment must pass. Voice Service Providers can use this checklist to evaluate deployments and set goals for SHAKEN operation.

• UCaaS / Hosted PBX Scenarios
• Advanced Find-Me-Follow-Me Scenarios
• Calling through IP-NNI / PSTN Termination vendors that add attestation for you
• Asymmetric Routing Scenarios
• Intra-service-provider Scenarios - when calls do not leave your own network
• SIP Trunking Scenarios
• Call Forwarding Scenarios
• Privacy and Caller ID Override Scenarios
• Analysis, Display, and Nuisance calling mitigation

Presented by Mark Lindsey, SMTS and Vice President Engineering, at ECG

Register for ALL of the SIPNOC 2020 webinars today!

The 2019 Communications Fraud Control Association (CFCA) voice fraud loss survey of enterprises, service providers and unified communications companies estimated that the cost of fraud was on average 1.74% of revenues, or over $28 billion.  The bad guys never rest.  They continually come up with ways to exploit communications platforms and drive fraudulent traffic.  They can wipe out profit margins for months, or even years to come in this CCA virtual meeting.

The ECG Senior Technical Staff discuss the Most Common Cybersecurity Mistakes Made in Voice Networks.

Panelists: James Puckett, Sherwin Crown, Brian Tate, Jon Chleboun, and Mark Lindsey (host).

Topics:

• Planning for your Network At Scale
• Applying Cybesecurity frameworks like NIST's
• Managing devices securely
• Managing secret keys (for certificates) and passwords securely
• Network Segmentation
• SIP Authentication
• Defense against device scanning - SIP phone configurations
• Voice call-in portal passcodes
• Expertise -- having people on your team who can fully understand the technology
• Firewall management - internet exposure
• Planning for rapid recovery - backup management and restoration
• Change management process and security
• Firewall scanning - open ports, servers exposed to the Internet
• E.164 dialing and call processing rules to defend against fraud, traffic pumping
• Operating System and Application updates
• Managing End-of-Life (EOL) devices that don't have available software updates

Alpaca 7.0 Webinar covering new features including Bulk User Provisioning

The WannaCry and NotPetya malware attacks of 2017 dealt widespread damage to the IT world in the form of weeks of downtime for many networks, slowed operations in the healthcare and logistics fields, and caused a total of $53 billion in damages in over 100 countries, as estimated by Lloyd's of London. In our Defending Voice Networks Against Malware webinar, you will learn what you need to protect yourself and your network from malware attacks like these. 

Join ECG, the oldest BroadSoft and Cisco Partners, for a Webinar on what Cisco-BroadSoft means for your business. ECG VP & Engineer Mark Lindsey will provide the latest inside and provide details to improve your strategy. ECG has been an Integration partner for Cisco and BroadSoft since 2003, and we can help you through the transition.