All aboard: session border controller train on track - For Starters

For anyone that attended the VON (Voice on the Net) show in Boston recently, wherever you turned there was a buzz around session border control/session controllers (SBCs/SCs). But beyond being just another VoIP-related buzzword to add to your vocabulary, the relatively nascent industry segment is gaining real steam with real customer deployments and investments.

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Driven hard by a group of savvy start-up vendors (Acme Packet, Kagoor, Netrake, NexTone, Ridgeway and Jasomi), the market growth for this segment appears to be picking up. According to industry analyst firm Infonetics, the market shows a 369-percent growth in 2003, reaching $30 million this year and further growth in 2004 and beyond.

These market numbers are probably represented by some of the most recent deployments, with ITXC (NexTone) and Global Crossing (Acme Packet), among others, adopting these platforms for VoIP peering.

Operating a largely Cisco-based network, global VolP carrier ITXC opted to deploy NexTone's MSC (Multiprotocol Session Controller) solution. ITXC.net, which currently interconnects 175 countries via direct relationships, will use the NexTone MSC to establish an IP border between the operator's Cisco-based network and other VoIP networks.

And no sooner did the ink dry on that deal did Woburn, Mass.-based Acme Packet announce that Global Crossing will deploy its Net-Net products at its network edge to facilitate IP network connectivity for its VoIP termination services. Acme Packet also announced it raised $15 million in its second round of financing, bringing its total funding to $31 million.

As analysts such as Joe McGarvey of Current Analysis see it, such deployments in Tier One networks could put the heat on other vendors such as Netrake and Kagoor to also name a Tier One customer. Netrake, which has probably the largest offering on the market, says it has at least one major U.S.-based IXC and PTT. In order to appeal to a larger customer audience, Netrake recently added support for H.323, VolP VPN and a smaller product called nCite SE. Similarly, Kagoor Networks has also been gaining customer traction with smaller operators, including Broadvox, as well as Tier One operators such as ITXC. In addition, the vendor recently squared $4 million in third-round funding led by Siemens Venture Capital.

The momentum for SBCs/SCs has also been attracting other vendors to the market, including Quintum Technologies and Jasomi Networks. Quintum is the latest vendor to throw its hat into the SBC ring with the release of its Tenor Call Relay SP product. The vendor also struck a partnership with Ridgeway, an early SBC/SC pioneer. Meanwhile, Jasomi has been touting NAT (network address translation) traversal in both smaller service providers and enterprise networks.

"This was a space no one was talking about eight months ago, and you have to ask the question: the network and service providers got along without this until now, so why do we need this all of a sudden?" asks Jon Arnold, program leader for VoP equipment at Frost & Sullivan. "The 'all of a sudden' is that this technology addresses the issue that voice is not well engineered in terms of being packetized. Now, it's understood that the commonly used term of VoIP islands really means opening your IP network to someone else's. That's a scary thought and that's what [SBC/SC] are built to address."

COPYRIGHT 2003 Horizon House Publications, Inc.
COPYRIGHT 2004 Gale Group