In today's highly digitalized world, the ability to access the internet is almost more of a necessity and less of a luxury like it used to be. Telecommunications has become the main form of communication for the average consumer and businesses, with access to a communications network essential. Now, more than ever, telecom cooperatives must make sure they are able to provide quality telecommunications service to those in rural areas.
Telecom cooperatives are most often located in rural areas where there is a strong cooperative tradition. They provide local telephone exchange services, long-distance telephone operations, direct broadcast satellite, wireless, TV, mobile radios, cellular and key systems, and Internet access. While they only serve five percent of the U.S. population, telecom cooperatives' service land area covers over 40 percent of the country's landmass, making their ability to deliver an efficient and protected communications network to their customers crucial to keeping the country connected. Many telecom cooperatives today use Session Border Controllers (SBC) to keep their networks both fast and secure.
Ribbon Communications (News - Alert), a global provider of real-time communications software and IP optical transport solutions to service providers, enterprises, and critical infrastructure sectors, recently announced that Emily Cooperative Telephone Company, a regional provider of premium communications services to customers in Central Minnesota, has deployed Ribbon's market-leading Session Border Controller Software Edition (SBC SWe).
"Ribbon's C15 Call Control technology has served us extremely well for many years, so when it came to enhancing our network security, expanding our offerings and SIP trunk routing capabilities, upgrading to Ribbon's SBC SWe was a very easy decision," said Josh Netland, CEO of Emily Tel. "Their SBC SWe provides us with state-of-the-art virtualized technology that allows us to cost-effectively enhance our communications offerings while protecting our network and our customers."
The SBC delivers Emily Tel numerous benefits, including providing enhanced security/encryption services to protect its communications network and customers from potential bad actors, as well as certified support for Microsoft (News - Alert) Teams Direct Routing. The SBC SWe also gives Emily Tel the ability to simplify SIP trunk routing for business customers, which can significantly cut costs and increase reliability for a business phone system.
"Emily Tel is always at the leading edge when it comes to providing its customers with the latest in communications services," said Elizabeth Page, U.S. Rural Market Director for Ribbon. "We are delighted to extend our longstanding partnership with them by helping them protect their network and their customers as well as improve their offerings to both residential and business customers."
Ribbon's SBC Software Edition (SWe) is identical software to its award-winning SBC 5000 series and SBC 7000 product; however, there is not an actual appliance for this SBC. Operating on both public and private cloud systems, by delivering the SBC SWe as an OpenStack-based VNF, Ribbon helps ensure successful cloud deployments for real-time communications. With many service providers looking to implement and expand their deployment of network functions virtualization in their cloud, Ribbon made it so the SBC SWe can be deployed in any virtual or cloud environment. The SBC SWe also provides robust interworking for multiple signaling protocols, call admission control to manage traffic levels, multiple security features to protect the privacy and ensure regulatory compliance, media (RTP) packet processing, and audio transcoding.
Ribbon's virtualization strategy capitalizes on its heritage of enabling secure, reliable, and scalable real-time communications. With the cloud-native SBC SWe, service providers can be sure they will be able to deliver secure real-time communications on almost any private or public cloud environment without compromising scale and performance and without needing a truck roll.
And as the world continues to move towards even more digitalization daily, the ability to work in the cloud efficiently will become that much more vital.
Edited by
Maurice Nagle
