[VoiceOps] New to VoIP

[Justin Randall]

Welcome to VoIP!

 

The importance of the role an SBC plays in a VOIP topology is somewhat
based on what type of VoIP service you're offering.  If you're basically
providing a last-mile POTS service from a CO in your region of interest
and then trunking to a VoIP provider for off-net access you could
somewhat justify against purchasing an SBC and setting up properly
configuring access lists on your IP edge (you should also ensure
whatever core/edge Ethernet/IP routers/switches are capable of handling
the throughput you require).  However if you're providing phone service
over the public internet using IADs/ATA/IP Phones then you will
absolutely want to look into SBC options as they provide various
important functions such as NAT traversal and load shedding/DOS
protection which is important when opening any type of interface to the
public internet.

 

Whether you go with commercial hardware/software solution or go with
open source should be based on cost and support.  If you are unfamiliar
with VoIP it may be a better path of approach to go with commercial
vendors since they can provide you with support where required rather
than having to dig through various mailing lists and debugging exercises
to narrow down what may or may not be a bug in the end.  In contrast, if
you want to implement new functionality, with some talented programmers
you can do so yourself with open source solutions vs. going through long
and drawn out battles/cordial discussions with vendors to get them to
implement some functionality you may find useful or novel.

 

Regards,

 

Justin Randall

Team Leader - VoIP Engineering

Comwave Telecom Inc.

From: voiceops-bounces at voiceops.org
[mailto:voiceops-bounces at voiceops.org] On Behalf Of Jonathan Jones
Sent: June-21-10 1:56 PM
To: Matthew S. Crocker
Cc: voiceops at voiceops.org
Subject: Re: [VoiceOps] New to VoIP

 

 

On Mon, Jun 21, 2010 at 1:38 PM, Matthew S. Crocker
<matthew at corp.crocker.com> wrote:


Everything is software, a 'Session Border Controller' is software.  All
software needs some hardware to run on.  You can get a SBC that runs on
Linux/PC server based hardware or you can get a SBC that runs on
dedicated hardware.  Your softswitch is going to need several servers to
run on as well.  The smallest Broasoft/Broadworks implementation is 2
servers for the softswitch running virtual servers and 2 SBC (Acme
Packet). You can't get into that type of a setup anywhere near $50,000
though.

For 2000 subscribers I would highly recommend you partner with an
existing VoIP provider and resell their service.  They can handle all of
the VoIP heavy lifting and send you the Call Detail Records which you
can then use to bill.

If you want to do it yourself you'll probably have to live in the open
source world to keep below the $50,000 limit.




Thanks, I had been looking at the softswitch software route and had been
quoted a price of $12,288.00 for 1024 simultaneous calls. So I figure
$20k more or less for a softswitch that would do 2000 concurrencies,
another $10k in hardware. Am I too naive to want a software based
solution to perform least cost routing, billing, perhaps calling cards,
etc.

I've been looking into either Asterisk or Callweaver, OpenSIPS and
Soft-Switch.org for signaling. Am I again, naive or can it be done. If
not I don't want to waste my time nor money especially if I can do it
the right way.

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