Hosted VoIP

 

 

Charlie Vogt, President and CEO of GENBAND, recently sat down with me to discuss the future of the SIP market, as well as the entrance of companies like Google and Microsoft (News - Alert) into the telecom market.

 

GENBAND’s portfolio of products and solutions allows service providers to maximize the value of their legacy infrastructure while seamlessly migrating to next-generation, multimedia services that enable new, revenue-generating opportunities. Read more about the company here.

 

CV: Over the period of the last two and a half years, GENBAND has been executing a carefully planned strategy of building a diverse market leading portfolio of IMS focused IP gateways and application platforms. Our recent acquisition of Tekelec’s Switching Solutions Group (SSG) amplifies our commitment to this strategy. GENBAND now has one of the most robust IMS gateway and application portfolios in the industry serving the fixed wireline, mobile and cable markets.

 

CV: GENBAND recognized years ago that IP communications was (and is) the wave of the future. IP is purpose-built into GENBAND’s entire portfolio of gateways and applications. At NXTcomm (News - Alert) we announced our G9 Converged Media Gateway and G2 Compact Media Gateway, both of which are IP/IMS focused media gateways.

 

RT: What pains does your company solve for customers?

CV: GENBAND solves two primary challenges for our customers. One is the transition from legacy technology to next generation, for example the transition from TDM to IP and 2G to 3G/4G. Our platforms enable service providers to continue to maximize the use of their legacy equipment as they migrate to a next-generation IP/IMS architecture. Secondly, our application platforms empower service providers to attract and retain new consumer and business customers with unique, revenue-generating features.

 

RT: How has SIP changed communications?

CV: SIP is an open, internet standard signaling protocol derived from web technology versus the purpose built telecommunications signaling standards of the past. In the early days of VoIP and softswitch, SIP was but one of many competing choices of protocols, but SIP has since demonstrated its versatility and fit for a variety of applications, most notably VoIP, video, IM, and wireless. The commonality of SIP as the control plane standard for next-generation VoIP, cable, and wireless networks is reflected in the 3GPP IMS standards, which use SIP for control, and promise to create a unified architecture for services that spans all of these network types. The nature of the SIP protocol and its prevalence has enabled us as a vendor to easily adapt applications to work across different networks, even simultaneously. Although interoperation in complex networks is always a challenge, the amount of mutual interoperation that has occurred between most SIP implementations has served to “normalize” SIP, so now new applications and elements can be placed into service more quickly than they were before.

 

RT: How does the growth rate in the U.S. compare to the rest of the world?

CV: The U.S. growth has slowed as we have reached saturation in some markets with growth still happening in broadband and mobile markets. When you compare to the rest of the world, we are excited about trends that are happening in the Asian-Pacific Rim with China and other countries rapidly building out new next-generation infrastructure. Additionally, we see Latin America as another hot spot of growth.

 

RT: What do you think of Google and Apple entering the telecom market?

CV: This is an exciting time as companies like Google and Apple enter the telecom market. They both have a lot of smart people who understand applications, the human interaction with these applications, and are fully immersed in the Web. They have a lot to offer, but will also have somewhat of a learning curve as they get up to speed on the telecom market. We think they will motivate the traditional telecom service providers to think more outside the box relative to innovation.

 

CV: Microsoft is a huge player. They continue to innovate and are a leader in the applications space. Since they own the operating system and many of the most popular applications, like Microsoft Office, anyone wanting to interface with the primary player in desktop computing will need to talk to Microsoft.

 

RT: How will open source technologies change our market?

CV: Open source is impacting the market because vendors cannot discount this technology. We are using some open source OSs in our products and continue to refine our SIP application server technology, which allows carriers to create their own applications on our application platforms.

 

RT: What are your thoughts regarding hosted solutions?

CV: Hosted solutions are the perfect fit for a broadband world. We offer a compelling and disruptive hosted solution — our M6 Communication Applications Server — that provides advanced IP voice and multimedia applications to consumers and enterprise globally. Beyond voice communications, you can see hosted solutions with other applications on PCs growing as well.

 

CV: We believe that the network will continue to evolve to the IMS over the next five years enabling service providers to deliver new services faster and more economically than in the past. We also believe that legacy networks such as circuit switch networks will evolve at a pace that is slower than many would hope — GENBAND is working closely with the service providers and our OEM business partners to uniquely address the operational challenges, the cost as well as the ability to deliver new universal services across both their legacy and next generation networks. Mobile communications will evolve at a faster pace especially in developing countries and disruptive applications will be essential for fixed wireline and mobile communication service providers.

 

RT: What will the industry see at your booth at ITEXPO (News - Alert)?

CV: They will see a company promoting their best of breed portfolio of IMS ready gateways and applications platforms. We will have several application demos planned such as “call jump” that demonstrate the power, flexibility, and scalability of our advanced IP voice communications.

 

RT: Why is your booth a “Can’t Miss?”

CV: Simply put, “GENBAND gateways and applications rock” as featured in our new ad campaign. For any service provider thinking about or currently deploying VoIP, a visit to the GENBAND booth will prove to be insightful and beneficial. Our portfolio of IMS ready gateways and application platforms are purpose built for service providers migrating to open, fully distributed next generation networks. We will be showcasing several new applications that are consumer and enterprise driven that provide increased ARPU and differentiation for service providers.

 

RT: What do you want the industry to know about your company?

CV: That we are leading the next generation movement in IP gateways and application solutions. That our high-performance IP gateway and application platforms are purpose built for fixed wireline, mobile, and cable network service providers deploying VoIP and IMS networks. That we are continually innovating — working closely with our service provider and OEM business partners to enhance the network as it evolves to IMS. More about GENBAND can be found at www.genband.com.

RT: What’s next for communications?

CV: We have touched on the future throughout this conversation as we see mobile infrastructure and applications growing rapidly as the world we live in today demands mobility. The 13–30 year old young adults will continue to challenge the communications and entertainment industry to deliver the “next thing” and they will pay for it. For example, I never thought we would see the day that consumers would spend $10, $15 and even $20 per month for songs on their mobile phone ring tones. The home entertainment movement is expected and as a result has become the “battle field” to capture the consumer’s voice, data and video spend. Our view is that mobility will be a separate decision for consumers.

 

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