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VNF SBC as enabler for SIP Trunking as a Service

Flexibility, Automation and Service Agility as SBC capabilities to provide “as a service“ business models

SIP Business Trunking refers to the set of connection services (SIP based) and Network Services (SBC included) for the Business Continuity of an Enterprise offered by a Communications Service Provider (CSP): re-routing, trunk overflow management, centralized billing, service management, reliability, recovery… and other services depending on the CSP’s Application Server.

Currently, communication networks and service delivery platforms are experiencing a radical techno-economic transformation, often referred as Network Softwarization, that aims at reducing expenditures and increasing operational efficiency thanks to 5 key enablers:

Leveraging on NFV and SDN technologies, it’s now possibile to design and deliver a new concept of SIP Business Trunking: SIP Trunking as a Service.

Think to be an entrepreneur who wants to innovate its communication network with new Voice and Data services. It would be handy to be able to do it in a few simple steps:

  • to access to a CSP web portal
  • select a Unified Communication (UC) service bundle and new devices
  • and wait for receiving the overall service

like a “off-of-the-shelf” product.

On the other side, think to be a Communication Service Provider which is competing to provide VoIP services and deployments quickly and efficiently. All you would like to do is to combine new technologies and network competences to design new solutions, easy to deploy and manage, and supporting a high number of customers.

These expectations are very common among Enterprises and CSPs since both of them wish to take advantages from the Digital Transformation in terms of cost reduction and the possibility to implement new communication and collaboration solutions. These are the main drivers to migrate voice services from traditional TDM networks to VoIP networks implementing SIP Business Trunking solutions.

The Session Border Controller is the key element in SIP Business Trunking.

The SBC provides the demarcation point between Enterprise and CSP domains and enables secure SIP interconnections for the provisioning of Voice and Data services over IP to the Enterprise by means of the Service Providers, performing private numbering plan resolution, SIP signaling and media interoperability (SIP normalization, media adaptation and transcoding).

Till now the “classic” SIP trunking solution provides an efficient connection between multiple IP-PBX systems and a Service Provider network, centralizing applications, modernizing the VoIP infrastructure, delivering network services; and the service model is based on SBC standalone deployment, in Enterprise (eSBC) or hosted in CSP network, and on SIP trunks creation, collection and management.

Thanks to the adoption of NFV and SDN technologies, now CSPs can deploy a single Data Center or Cloud environment as a shared infrastructure for real-time SBC instances and centralized applications to provide:

  • resource and capability optimization
  • resource allocation on demand
  • automation of provisioning and configuration procedures
  • end-to-end service management

Definitely, this approach yealds an Agile Service Model for an efficient E2E business solution: the SIP Trunking as a Service.

Benefits are multiple.

From CSPs’ perspective, the shared infrastructure allows a significant expenditure saving and operational efficiency, automated procedures deliver a fast service activation and time-to-market reduction, resource allocation on demand supports a tailored solution capacity.

From Enterprises’ perspective, the main benefit is an overall end-to-end communication service, without costs for power/space resources allocation, lifecycle hardware management and telco skills.

This service model requires evolved SBCs, that have to be compatible with Data Center, Cloud & NFV environments, endowed with a high operational automation and responsive to a dynamic software services activation.

According to IHS Markit report, SIP Trunking is constantly increasing, mainly for the continuous growth of IP voice traffic: in 2018-2021 time period CAGR for trunks forecast is 11% and the overall market revenues are $ 33,7 billions*, meaning that Enterprises will invest in SIP Trunking service; besides CAGR for revenues forecast coming from SBC VNF in 2018-2021 time period is 22% **, meaning that CSPs are investing in SBCs evolving in VNF

*SIP Trunking Service – Annual Market Report, October 2017

** Service Provider VoIP and IMS Equipment and Subscriber Market Tracker- Regional, May 2018.

 

Italtel boasts more than a decade of experience in product virtualization and NFV specifications. As Telco vendor, Italtel designs and integrates network solutions and supports CSPs in the creation and delivery of SIP Trunking as a Service solutions. Thanks to the NFV design of NetMatch-S, that supports microservices architecture and lifecycle management automation, Italtel provides a solution with extreme flexibility, automation and service agility, enabling “Communication as a Service”.

KEYWORDS

NFV

SBC

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