Network Infrastructure for the Edge... Built On Dialogic

Growth, and more significantly, adaptation, will be the reality of communications networks for the foreseeable future. User minutes, subscriber growth, and operator investment has moved decisively from fixed networks to mobile networks, and is migrating from TDM endpoints to IP endpoints. Network equipment, whether at the core, or the edge, represents a tremendous opportunity for solution providers.

Infonetics Research forecasts the VoIP equipment market (media servers, softswitches, SBCs, gateways) to pause in 2009 then resume healthy, stable growth through at least 2013, when the market will hit $3.2 billion.

Within the network, explosive growth is expected in the IMS equipment segment, which will grow at an average annual growth rate of over 70% between 2008 and 2013 (Source: Infonetics Research, May 2009)

Dialogic has witnessed firsthand the changes in this market. Some key areas where opportunities exist, and Dialogic technologies can help, are listed below.

Gateways and Network Border Elements

Along the path towards the highly anticipated all-IP network, which offers the promise of universal SIP signaling, the telecom network remains a highly fragmented landscape. Operators offering wholesale or retail Voice over IP services frequently require media or signaling translation as their traffic crosses network or geographic boundaries.

Network Media and Contact Centers

With many countries approaching wireless subscriber saturation, and increased pricing pressure on basic mobile voice, operators are challenged to grow their revenue and manage costs. Operators are expanding into market segments with less technology savvy users, or in some cases adding more complex smart phones as a way to drive data revenue. Both strategies can increase customer support requirements.  IVR with speech recognition and smart media processing can be deployed to reduce these costs and increase customer satisfaction.

Network Monitoring and Signaling

Many services that operators and wireless customers consider absolutely essential are based on the ability to monitor, and interact with SS7 signaling in the network. Prepaid wireless and mobile roaming are two such applications.  Prepaid wireless subscribers represent 67% of total worldwide subscribers, and are expected to grow as a percentage of subscriber through 2012 (Source: Informa Telecoms & Media).