EDITORIAL

How to add Voice services to your Cable TV Network

Case-study Miba Telecom

MIBA Telecom is a Romanian CATV operator based in Bucharest. It has over 9000 Cable television subscribers. Part of them are customers for the Data services. The physical network is implemented with coaxial and optical fiber. Recently, they considered moving from a 2Play solution to a 3Play solution. They wanted to offer voice services to their customers.

Having the IP network infrastructure used for their Data Network they chose to implement a Next Generation Network with Voice over Internet Protocol services. It was the choice that was the simplest to implement, the less expensive and the most future-oriented alternative.

A Next Generation Network is defined by International Telecommunication Union as:
“A packet-based network able to provide services including Telecommunication Services and able to make use of multiple broadband, QoS-enabled transport technologies and in which service-related functions are independent from underlying transport-related technologies.”

Figure 1 – Topex Next Generation Network Architecture

Click for the enlarged picture

In the center of the Next Generation Network we have the Softswitch element. The softswitch perfoms multiple functions, such as:

• Controls connection services for a media gateway, and/or native IP endpoints
• Provides the ability to select processes that can be applied to a call
• Provides routing for a call within the network based on signaling and customer database information
• Has the ability to transfer control of the call to another network element
• Takes care of management functions such as provisioning, fault, billing, etc

At the borders of a Next Generation Network we have Signaling and Media Gateways that are used in interconnection with classical PSTN carriers. Major PSTN carriers use SS7 as the signaling protocol for the interconnection but there are cases when ISDN-PRI or R2 digital signaling is used.

MIBA Telecom wanted to offer Voice services for a number of 1000 subscribers. In time they wanted the same system to offer the upgrade possibility for a larger number of subscribers.

In the interconnection side MIBA opted for an interconnection using SS7 protocol.
After analyzing the solutions in the market, MIBA Telecom chose Topex as solution provider for their NGN implementation.

Some key advantages of Topex were that:

• Topex offers complete solution for VoIP implementation,
• Topex softswitch is scalable allowing for implementation of VoIP networks with a capacity varying 500 subscribers and going up to possibly thousands of subscribers, going even higher to hundreds of thousands and millions of users when clustering multiple softswitches, and
• Topex offers full assistance during the interconnection trials with other PSTN carriers and helps in configuration of the Softswitch and gateways.

Figure 2 – Topex EoneS Signaling and Media Gateway

The Topex Signaling and Media Gateway that MIBA chose, was Topex EoneS with a capacity of 4E1 - 120 voice channels converted from VoIP to SS7. With one Topex EoneS you can have up 300 simultaneous VoIP to TDM calls. Topex NGN architecture allows bundling multiple gateways to obtain larger capacity.

In the end Topex solution for MIBA Telecom was composed of Topex multiSwitch – which is the name of Topex softswitch and Topex EoneS signaling and media gateways. This solution works both with SIP(Session Initiation Protocol) telephones or with ATA(Analog Telephony Adapter) – for the cases when the users do not want to change their telephones and an adapter between analogue phone and VoIP is needed.

Figure 3 – MIBA Telecom VoIP Architecture

Click for the enlarged picture

The advantage with this solution is that it offers much faster Return Of Investment then the classical TDM voice solutions. The prices for the equipments and their maintainance is significantly lower then in the case of classic PSTN infrastructure.

Major operators in the telecom market are migrating their networks to NGN infrastructure. Most Service Provider start implementing Next Generation Networks for offering VoIP and 3Play services. It is a good moment to start considering Next Generation Network implementation and Topex can help you in building your NGN infrastructure.

“We have chosen TOPEX NGN solution for our Voice services implementation as it has offered us the optimal answer for our needs. Topex softswitch architecture allows starting with a small number of VoIP users, upgrading in future when you have more subscribers. We believe TOPEX is the best choice for the small-medium operators that would like to implement VoIP services.” - Mihai Barbu President of MIBA Telecom