Carrier Infrastructure Upgrade Highlights Need for Better VoIP Network Monitoring

International communications provider Calltrade Carrier Services just made the switch to session border controllers by SIP solutions provider Sonus Networks. The deal highlights one of the challenges that VoIP technology still faces.

First, the Calltrade adjustment.

Currently, Calltrade terminates more than 15 billion minutes of voice traffic per year for fixed-line providers, mobile phone companies and cable companies worldwide. It is connected with more than 150 telecommunications carriers across the globe, including nearly all of the world's leading international carriers, according to Sonus. To help ensure that this traffic continues to move properly among providers, Calltrade has begun using the Sonus SBC 5200 Series to deliver advanced media services and protocol interworking to ensure seamless interoperability with other service providers.

The Sonus SBC supports up to 64,000 sessions on a single server and provides advanced routing and integrated transcoding capability.

“Terminating more than 15 billion minutes of traffic per year requires a Session Border Controller that can scale on-demand as our business continues to grow, without compromising performance,” noted Daniel Groth, president and chief executive officer for Calltrade. “Sonus SBCs provide exceptional transcoding functionality that no other SBC vendor is able to deliver.”

This is all good press for Sonus. But it also highlights one of the biggest challenges that still faces VoIP adoption: VoIP calls are only as good as the network it runs on.

While providers can have great data center for their VoIP and virtual PBX offerings, and use the latest telephony technology, VoIP is still constrained by the lower common denominator when it comes to network quality. Latency and a lack of bandwidth prioritization can hurt the customer experience even with the best offerings.

That’s why Calltrade is investing in SBCs; it knows the critical importance of the network.

It also is why network monitoring services are more important than ever. Service providers need to ensure that their networks are moving appropriately, and that VoIP traffic is not getting bottlenecked or slowed down in any way. Of course there will be challenges in the network from time to time, which is why networking monitoring is essential.

Business VoIP and VoIP PBX cannot afford reliability issues. Monitoring ensures reliability stays high.

So while Calltrade upgrade is just another piece of business news, it also tells the tale of a much larger issue that any provider associated with VoIP must clearly address.

Edited by Alisen Downey