Overview
Recent advancement
in technology has made it possible for voice to be carried over packet
networks (VoIP) more effectively and efficiently. The voice quality is
increasingly acceptable for end users and carriers. The prospect of advanced
IP communications services for end users and cost benefits to service
providers by consolidating networks and reducing network elements have
brought IP-IP voice peering to a whole new level of awareness.
The ability to peer IP–IP for voice without tapping into the PSTN
enables service providers to interconnect disparate VoIP networks, thus
taking control of the islands of VoIP networks maintained by different
carriers. Peering would further help enterprises interconnect their networks
to carrier networks.
Interconnecting networks is an important task--one with which today's
VoIP equipment architectures is not prepared to deal. The current practice
of using back-to-back TDM infrastructure is not cost-effective and definitely
does not help improve the voice quality. VoIP will continue to experience
inhibited growth unless vendors effectively solve the VoIP peering problem.
Several problems occur
when trying to interconnect two or more VoIP networks--especially if providers
want to offer ubiquitous IP services. While VoIP does not have parity
with existing voice and data peering models, the ability to peer VoIP
networks enables carriers to utilize their cheaper, flexible data infrastructures
for voice and reduce their reliance on the telephony network, thereby
providing a number of benefits: maintenance of a single network, cost
reduction in equipment and services, and the advantage of new VoIP services
such as instant voice conferencing. Most importantly, VoIP peering brings
about the much-needed PSTN parity to VoIP deployments.
A number of
problems must be solved first involving:
- Multi-Vendor
interoperability
- Multi-Protocol
Networking - support for H.323, SIP & their variations
- Firewalls/NAT
- security, private-public networks
- Topology
Hiding - for wholesale transit traffic
- Call
Admission Control - Authentication/Policing
- CDRs - for billing and mediation
- VoIP
Quality of Service
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The simple, elegant
solution to these problems is a session controller which resides at the
carrier's network edge. The carrier may have one or more session controllers
deployed in a distributed manner to manage all the ingress and egress
VoIP traffic to the network.
MediaRing’s
VoizBridge is a proven carrier-class session controller, that provides
carriers with a cost-effective, flexible and secured means to peer with
disparate VoIP networks.
More about MediaRing
VoizBridge
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