Call quality matters.
While most consumers do not expect (or even know about) high-definition voice, they are familiar with the artifacts and dropped packets that often appear in the middle of a Skype (News - Alert) call. While VoIP is gaining increasing market share, for main the concept of VoIP still conjures up sub-par quality at a lower price than traditional calling.
Now, of course, this is not the case; VoIP can deliver superior call quality above and beyond what traditional networks can deliver. But, only if there is proper signaling and prioritization on the network.
With that in mind, session border controllers (SBCs) and their ability to control the media streams that set up, conduct and tear down voice calls are increasingly being used to ensure that callers have a better-than-Skype experience.
Roughly 85 percent of service providers surveyed in a recent Infonetics (News - Alert) report noted that the most important use of SBCs is signaling protocol normalization and interworking, as well as session capacity.
“Access at the edge of fixed networks continues to be where the majority of session border controllers (SBCs) are deployed today, but the use of SBCs for interconnection between service providers continues to expand,” said Diane Myers, principal analyst for VoIP, UC, and IMS at Infonetics.
The rise of voice-over-LTE (News - Alert) (VoLTE) is a particularly strong area for SBC expansion.
“Wireless access, and specifically voice over LTE (VoLTE), represents solid growth prospects for new SBC deployments over the next two years and is an area where we’re already seeing an impact on sales in the first half of 2013,” she added.
The survey also found that a growing number of SBC are virtual, with a growing percentage of operators planning to use SBCs in a virtualized environment in the next two years.
Further, the report noted that there is a trend toward employing a multi-vendor strategy; best-of-breed is winning out over going with a product line all under one roof.
Service providers that answered the survey ranked Oracle and Acme Packet as the leaders in the space. Huawei and Sonus Networks (News - Alert) also are manufacturers with strong offerings, with Genband least preferred.
With cellular operators increasingly seeing VoLTE as the long-term direction of their voice business, this augurs well for SBC sales and the technology’s ability to deliver voice that is a cut above the early days of VoIP.
Edited by Blaise McNamee