Customer White paper. Scalable PSTN / PBX Gateway Solutions for Enterprise, Multi-PRI market. March 2015 Author Antoine Lecomte

Transcription

1 Scalable PSTN / PBX Gateway Solutions for Enterprise, Multi-PRI market March 2015 Author Antoine Lecomte Customer White paper

2 Table of Contents 1. Introduction 2. How can Operators and CSPs Satisfy the 2 to npri Market? 3. The OneAccess ONE700 Multi-PRI Gateway Solution 4. What Makes the ONE700 so Competitive to Emerging Carriers and Enterprise Business Customers? 5. Summary 2

3 1. Introduction In today s highly competitive voice market operators need to be able to respond to their business customer s differing requirements with flexible cost-effective service offerings that enable them to maintain good customer relationships and protect their revenues from predatory competition. This means being able to provide scalable voice and unified communications solutions for SMEs through to major enterprises that seamlessly integrate with their customers legacy equipment as well as the latest SIP-based technology, at the optimum price-point. One of the major challenges this represents for operators is in selecting the right gateway technology to support the current and future communication needs of both the smallest SME operation as well as for large-scale enterprises that could have a network of branch offices and potentially hundreds of employees. This challenge is exacerbated by the fact that although a large proportion of businesses can operate with less than 30 individual voice channels (between 1BRI and 1PRI circuit) there remains a small but significant number of businesses that need multiple PRI services, which requires an entirely different and more complex technical solution. Since this small proportion of customers represents a disproportionally high volume of voice and data traffic (and associated revenues), operators cannot afford to ignore this lucrative sector of the market, which means deploying an extensible PSTN/PBX gateway capable of supporting multiple BRI/PRI circuits to satisfy the growth requirements of all their business customers. However, such equipment can result in a high per customer CPE investment that in many cases may be under-utilized and does not provide the deployment flexibility needed to bridge the full range of this 2 to 8 PRI market. This results in higher costs for the operator that ultimately translate into increased service charges for the customer. OneAccess offers a unique, scalable PSTN/PBX gateway solution that enables operators to support a broad range of multi-pri circuit requirements on a pay-as you-grow (PAYG) basis providing a rapid upgrade path when the customer needs to add more PRI lines to their system. 3

4 2. How Can Operators and CSPs Satisfy the 2 to npri Market? To provide a fully functioning PBX gateway the conventional approach is to deploy a single-box solution, which provides the right modularity and port density to support the potential future needs of the customer. Usually this also means adding separate boxes to support a broad range of use case scenarios such as routing or enterprise session border control (esbc). Typically this can lead to over-specifying voice-channel upgrade capacity to provide built-in redundancy, which inevitably means higher hardware costs than is strictly necessary to meet the current service requirement. From the operator s perspective it can make sense to over-specify the port density at the outset to avoid additional hardware and engineering upgrade costs if and when additional PRI circuits are needed - albeit at the cost of reduced margins over the life of the contract. Since customers with multi-site operations need the same solution to be replicated at each location, this further increases the associated Capex and Opex costs for the service provider. 3. The OneAccess ONE700 Multi-PRI Gateway Solution Another approach is to stack OneAccess PRI gateways. The OneAccess multi-pri technology offers an alternative, validated approach to enable the smooth stacking of multiple OneAccess gateways that can support up to 8xPRI without adding to management overheads. This differs from the conventional approach and provides operators with a significantly lower cost PBX gateway solution that is right-sized for initial deployment but which can be quickly extended on a pay-as-you-grow basis. Based on the ONE700 high capacity integrated voice and data service platform, OneAccess gateway combines routing and esbc functions in a single box, while supporting up to 2 x E1/T1 PRI (60/48) simultaneous voice channels. For the majority of customers this will be sufficient to meet all their current and future voice and data requirements. However, for large-scale enterprise customers with requirements for 4 or more PRIs, multiple ONE700 s can be configured as a single entity to support up to 240 concurrent voice channels. Two solutions are possible: Either the CSP network is able to manage multiple gateways attached to a single site. In this case, trunk group registration is the solution. Or the CSP network is unable to handle this scenario, in which case, the ONE1540 behaves as a topology-hiding gateway. 4

5 Trunk Group Registration The PBX connected to the SIP gateways will support a set of DDI phone number extensions with every gateway registering the same DDI numbers. The OneOS supports RFC4904 trunk group registration, which enables the SIP network to associate the registrations with a single site. The SIP network will then load-balance calls on all gateways registered to that same group. This means that the management of the OneAccess SIP gateway is nearly identical to non-gateway sites and requires only very limited changes in CLI templates. Topology Hiding of Multiple Gateways In some networks, the trunk group feature is not supported or it is quite difficult to adapt the provisioning of the SIP AS to accommodate trunk groups. In this case, OneAccess provides a solution that hides the complexity of having to manage multiple gateways. The network will only need to manage and provision a single CPE (for example, a ONE1540 with an SBC Nano license) that will be seen as a high-capacity SIP gateway which can: I. register the DDI trunk(s) II. Route all SIP calls through the ONE1540 The ONE1540 balances calls according to the ONE700 call limits. In the ONE1540 configuration, each ONE700 is reached through a dial-peer that has a call limit that matches the ONE700 physical call limit. These are monitored periodically by probing the ONE700 reachability via a SIP OPTIONS message, with the dial-peers being members of a specified voice-group. The ONE700s acknowledge SIP OPTIONS messages only when the PRI ports are up, so that the ONE1540 does not distribute calls to a ONE700 with no operational PRI ports. The ONE700s also poll the ONE1540 reachability via SIP OPTIONS-based monitoring. If the ONE1540 cannot be reached, the ONE700 takes down the PRI, so that the PBX does not attempt to establish calls through a ONE700 PRI port that has no path to the SIP network. 5

6 The call routing feature of SBC Nano evenly distributes the calls between the reachable ONE700s up to the physical call limit. When one of the ONE700s is operating at maximum capacity and not available, no calls will be forwarded to that unit. In sites requiring only 4 PRIs, a single ONE700 is sufficient to run SBC Nano and distributes calls between the local PRI and another external gateway. Because one of the goals of this solution is to make the network unaware of the PRI gateways, OneAccess has validated reference configurations where every ONE700 sitting behind the ONE1540 uses exactly the same, static configuration (for any customer locations). These configurations can be factory-loaded with new static CLI configurations and firmware updates available to download either from the http(s) server running in the ONE1540 or from a server in the network. If the files are hosted on the ONE1540, they can be updated as usual through standard provisioning tools (such as TR-069 or other file transfer protocols). 4. What Makes the ONE700 Comptetitive for Carriers and Enterprise Business Customers? The ONE700 stacking solution is feature and function-rich providing a range of options that allow for service consolidation across a single access facility, including: Multiple PRI ports with an integrated ISDN/PSTN function for direct voice network access, offering up to 8 PRI, E1/T1 Services or up to 240 DS0 channels. Ethernet Fiber-based connectivity that will support both customers LAN/WAN and VOIP based services. An integrated routing service delivery platform with support for advanced routing and valueadded services, eliminating the need for additional expensive branch routers. An embedded esbc function provides a VOIP-service level demarcation device that simplifies the handling of voice services. 6

7 5. Summary Sites with multiple PRIs are rare but nevertheless represent opportunities that CSP do not want to lose. The high Capex/Opex and engineering costs associated with deploying multi-box, highdensity voice gateways is not cost-effective and does not provide sufficient flexibility in all cases. Overall, the OneAccess solution brings the benefits of pay-as-you-grow, with very flexible scale out, without the management overheads of a multi-box solution. The challenge for carriers is to procure a technology/solution that will allow them to deliver integrated client communications services without driving up OAM&P (Operations, Administration, and Maintenance & Provisioning) operational costs. By providing an integrated solution, carriers can give their customers an opportunity to leverage the same technology to further their own business objectives, providing an effective barrier to exit and reduce customer churn. In addition, carrier customers gain an effective single point of contact for all their service and support calls. Subsequently, CSP managers gain control of their network costs giving them the capacity to focus on their core business as opposed to worrying about logistics: multiple equipment, service provisioning and equipment maintenance and service contracts. Ultimately, a single service provider consolidated solution promotes freedom and flexibility for the customer. The OneAccess Solution OneAccess Networks now provides a solution that will deliver all the requirements of small/medium and large customer which includes: Voice service concentration: legacy voice, VOIP, and SIP Access concentration efficiency: scalable E1/T1 channels solution Integrated, multi-function hardware (CSU/DSU, router, Voice/Data Service Platform, esbc as Voice demarcation) Elimination of hardware upgrades (completely software driven) Lower capital and operational expenses Easy TR-069 provisioning using OneProvisio (the OneAccess provisioning platform) Easily managed/monitored via web browser/onemanage/netflow Fully based on open standards. The ONE700 addresses these market requirements in a seamless and cost-effective manner. It combines all of the capabilities of a voice/data router, voice service demarcation and fiber/copper WAN interface, allowing a level of services integration and consolidation that provides effective protection from accelerating equipment and service costs. 7

8 ABOUT us OneAccess designs, develops and markets innovative platforms for the profitable delivery of CPE-based managed network services for communication service providers (CSPs). Its multi-service access routers and Carrier Ethernet devices are designed to ensure service continuity and a high quality of experience for managed broadband and wireless data and voice services targeted at enterprise customers. OneAccess service-delivery platforms align with the current and future deployment and operating models of service providers by optimizing the delivery of managed Cloud services and migration to SDN architectures. OneAccess CPE platforms are used by more than 110 communication service providers internationally, including some of the world s largest telecommunications companies. With a global presence that includes North America, Europe and Asia, OneAccess, a private company, was incorporated in Smart Enterprise Access Solutions for Service Providers For more information visit OneAccess, Pentagone Plaza, 381 Avenue du Général de Gaulle, Clamart, France Phone: +33 (0) Fax: +33 (0) [email protected]