Sonus Networks Delivers Solution to Target Standalone SBC Market

| Aug 7, 2009 | IP Services Infrastructure | Competitive Intelligence Report

| Analyst: Jeff Ogle

Current Perspective: Positive
Vendor Importance: Moderate
Market Impact: Moderate

Event Summary

August 6, 2009 -– Sonus Networks announced enhancements to the Sonus Network Border Switch to help its customers target growth markets such as IP access services with voice over broadband and SIP business trunking while expanding its ability to perform IP peering. The key enhancements to the Network Border Switch include: Local policy and built in session routing capability to support less complex routing requirements distributed, SIPconnect V1.1 draft framework from the SIP Forum for improved interoperability with IP PBX’s using SIP trunks, Dynamic Blacklisting for malicious activity and operational tools to aid in service delivery and turn-up.

Analytical Summary

• Current Perspective: Positive on Sonus Networks’ announced enhancements to its Network Border Switch (NBS) because it can now be deployed in a larger variety of applications and is better optimized for each. The Sonus NBS can now be deployed with or without centralized routing and as a media gateway, a standalone SBC or a hybrid of the two. This new flexibility will also allow the NBS to scale in a more cost-effective and controlled manner, driven by the needs of the carrier in terms of subscriber and services scale.

• Vendor Importance: Moderate to high to Sonus, because as a public company, it needs to grow revenue and be profitable. These enhancements should help to achieve these goals through increased sales opportunities which will lead to increased revenue. Specifically, Sonus can now directly attack the standalone SBC market that is currently dominated by Acme Packet, which holds approximately 50% of this $200 million+ market, according to several industry trackers.

• Market Impact: Moderate on the media gateway and SBC market, as this move was needed to allow Sonus to compete more effectively at the network edge for applications requiring a more simplified standalone device. Sonus, a recognized leader in the media gateway space, had crafted its original solution around its centralized core. It is now taking steps to improve its solution for a broader range of topologies and allow the product to compete as a standalone SBC in a distributed or centralized network architecture.

CLIENTS ONLY

Current Perspective

Competitive Positives and Concerns

Recommended Vendor Actions

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Recommended Competitor Actions

• Acme Packet should highlight that its Net-Net 4000 SBC offers proven interoperability with built-in call routing and security capabilities. It has also been deployed in approximately 100 IMS-based networking applications proving its ability to evolve. Acme Packet should highlight that in addition to being deployed in approximately 600 customer networks, all requiring unique interoperability demands, the Acme Packet Net-Net product family is compliant with a laundry list of specifications and implementation agreements, including those promoted by the 3GPP, ETSI-TISPAN, MultiService Forum (MSF), IETF, CableLabs, the SIP Forum, ATIS and GSM Association.

• Veraz should provide additional information and updates regarding its SBC functionality released in March 12, 2008, for its I-Gate 4000 Pro media gateway platform. In a similar manner to Sonus, Veraz recognized the opportunity to leverage its technology and expertise to target new sales opportunities in the SBC market. Veraz got its first public endorsement in December 2008 when Dollar Phone deployed its SBC solution.

• GENBAND should highlight that its S3 SBC was uniquely architected from the combination of a security company and an SBC company that combined organizations to produce a mobile-targeted security gateway functionality designed to enable service providers offering FMC services to simplify the complexity of their networks. By integrating multiple session management functions into a single device, the S3 SBC essentially handles all signaling and session control duties and provides security encryption of both signaling and media traffic and bearer control duties. It’s field-proven with major VoIP traffic carriers, such as TeleGlobe and iBasis.

• Huawei should highlight that its Session Engine 2300 SBC is a full-featured and scalable platform that offers industry-leading performance and flexibility in terms of support for various configurations and was architected from the beginning to operate in a standalone or distributed fashion. Huawei should stress that the SE 2300 is capable of being configured and deployed to provide application-specific support including: SBC as a standard IP-IP gateway, SBC with separation of the Signaling and Media, Multi-softswitch application proxy and the C-BGF in an IMS architecture.

• Router vendors that have taken the embedded approach to session management, like Cisco, Ericsson and Juniper, should highlight the benefits of integrations with other internal network functions like security. The other major benefit of the embedded router approach to SBC is the complexity, CapEx and OpEx argument of introducing another new and unique network element.

CLIENTS ONLY

Current Perspective

Competitive Positives and Concerns

Recommended Vendor Actions

| Client access - Full report in IP Services Infrastructure | More information

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