Newport Networks Newsletter
September 2006

Visit Newport Networks at booth 1161 at Fall VON and see the new 310 Border Gateway, part of our portfolio of IMS compliant border gateways and border controllers.

Prize Draw We're holding a daily prize draw with a prize of a stunning Canon Powershot A620 7.1 Megapixel digital camera. Drop by booth 1161 with your business card to enter the draw.

Where: Boston Convention and Exhibition Center.
When: Conference: September 11th to 14th, Exhibition: 12th to 14th.

Register online before Sunday with priority code: NEWPORTEP to take advantages of these offers:

• $200 discount on full Conference pricing
• A limited number of FREE Expo Only passes
  

Mike Wilkinson, VP of Marketing writes on the security of VoIP networks in an article in Converge! Network Digest.

VoIP services have, unwittingly, sparked heated debate concerning security. Antivirus company MessageLabs recently predicted that VoIP hacking and viruses will be commonplace by mid 2007 sparking a new wave of concern for users, network operators and service providers alike. For operators and service providers, delivering on the new services promised by IP-based networks and adding new ones to generate revenue presents critical security issues, similar to those encountered when deploying basic VoIP services or email. However, there are several architectural steps that can be taken in order to prevent such threats and maintain the safety of the network. From end-to-end encryption to the prevention of distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks, SPIT (Spam over internet telephony), and viruses, products such as session border controllers have been identified as a key factor in resolving security concerns.

VoIP Security is becoming ever more important as high profile fraud cases hit the press. Strong authentication of users helps mitigate these attacks, a fact recognised by 3GPP in the IMS security framework. But 'VoIP over IPsec' poses problems in wireline networks when it encounters NATs.

TISPAN has addressed this though the use of encapsulation of the IPsec messages thus taking advantage of the security afforded by IPsec and the flexibility offered by UDP NAT traversal.

IPsec can be confusing offering different flavours for different applications, this White Paper looks at those different flavours and how these relate to TISPAN's choice...

Newport's CTO Alan Nunn casts his critical eye over the on-going debate of Peering and Interconnect. If you thought they were the same, read on...

War of the Worlds? Maybe that's overstating it a bit, but there are certainly two worlds of VoIP opinion out there. For most of the last century telecoms operators have maintained their own networks which have nice clean borders between them, with money changing hands as calls cross the boundaries. This is usually regulated by the national regulator. There is a well understood business model here, the operator handling the outgoing call collects revenue from the caller, they pay a transit fee to a transit operator, who in turn pays a termination fee to the operator who places the call, each keeping a bit of margin along the way.

Show me the Money

VoIP provides the opportunity to either continue with this model, or to take a more radical, end-to-end view where the caller finds the called party, connects directly over the Internet, and that's it. No money changes hands, no transit operator grabs a slice of the revenue stream. The Internet makes everyone's territory global.

So what's the catch? Why isn't everyone doing this? Why do we still pay phone bills? Well, there are a number of answers to this....

So is there an IP interconnect mess? Telecom TV seemed to think so when they invited a panel to discuss it on "The Main Agenda" at Telecom TV. Alan Nunn joined Brian Levy from HP and Keith Miller from Appium to talk through some of the issues in this area.

The Session Blog records thoughts, ramblings and rants related to our industry. You'll find comment and controversy on regulation, technology and shows. Why not have your say? Add your ten-cents to the discussion.