TeleDynamics Think Tank

Did you miss Channel Partners in Las Vegas last week? Fear not - we've jotted down some of the key themes for you. Take note!

New year, new risks. Let’s talk security.

In today’s digital economy, mobility is not only an expectation, but in many cases, a requirement for workers to successfully fulfill their responsibilities. Security is a key preoccupation for network administrators as they implement voice and data technologies for remote workers.

In this article, we review various remote employee voice service scenarios, look at what their potential risks are, and examine the best voice encryption and VPN solution for each case. 

The Internet of Things (IoT) is a field of information and communications technology (ICT) that has been increasing exponentially for the past few years, with the number of connected devices now exceeding the world’s human population.

But many IoT device users may not be aware of the inherent security risks of their internet-connected devices, according to a January 2018  study by the Cybersecurity Research Institute. According to the report, hackers have already proven themselves adept at discovering flaws in these devices and turning them into botnets (botnets are a collection of connected devices infected with malware and controlled without the owners' knowledge).

In this article, we review some of the vulnerabilities inherent in connected devices and steps you can take to secure your network and protect against hackers.

One of the most common matters we discuss with customers on our support calls is network security – specifically, how to lock down SIP Trunks, IP PBXs, SIP phones, and routers from hacking. Here we review different ways hackers can break into your voice network and the steps you can take to secure your system.

Review of the EdgeMarc 2900a and 2900e Enterprise Session Border Controllers

Update: Since this article was published, in 2018, Edgewater Networks was acquired by Ribbon Communications.

Edgewater Networks has added to its line of enterprise session border controllers (eSBCs) with its EdgeMarc 2900A and 2900E models. These are designed to enable enterprises and service providers to future-proof their SIP trunking and Unified Communications (UC) deployments. With built-in mechanisms for both QoS and security, they provide intelligent mechanisms allowing for both hosted PBX services as well as SIP trunking applications.

They have several features that differ from other EdgeMarc SBCs.

If you weren’t able to attend Channel Partners Evolution last week in Austin, fear not: here are our top takeways from the event.

Quantum-leap technology advancements will enable on-demand services anytime, anywhere, with ubiquitous connectivity.

by Laureen R. Cook, Principal Telecoms, Media and Technology Advisor, IFC (World Bank) 

Nordic Mobile Telephony (NMT) was introduced as the first 1G system in the Scandinavian countries in 1982. 2G was commercially deployed in 1992 and 3G launched commercially in 2001, allowing mobile data as a mainstream service. 4G has been deployed since 2012, and is still being deployed around the world in developing markets, and 5G is on the horizon for the early- to mid-2020s. On average, we deploy a new generation of mobile communications every 10 years. In 25 years’ time, we will have deployed 7G and be well underway with design of the specifications for 8G, where wireless high-definition video streaming and virtual reality are part of the everyday norm. We will have transformed ourselves from the Digital Era of the 1990s to 2020, to the Digital Era of Automation from 2020 and beyond, which will be an all-immersive, high-definition user experience, taking us seamlessly from Gigabytes GB = 10⁹ of data to Zettabytes ZB = 10²¹.

Voice over IP networks can be challenging to implement efficiently and securely. This is in part because voice packets require specialized management and must be treated differently than normal data packets. Quality of Service (QoS), security and flow control are just some areas in which the required handling of voice traffic differs from conventional data traffic.

The good thing is that with the proper expertise and care, many of these issues can be successfully dealt with within the corporate network. Such networks are under the complete control of the network administration team and thus can be fully customized for the needs of the voice being transmitted.

However, what happens when voice packets are routed beyond the corporate network, either for voice calls to the PSTN or mobile network, or for employees who use internal voice network services remotely? Here we look at various network edge mechanisms that can be used to monitor and manage data traveling in and out of the LAN.

By John Macario, SVP of Product Management and Marketing at Edgewater Networks

The beginning of a new year is a time when many business managers reflect on learnings from the previous year and begin working on their goals for the current year. Business continuity and data security are, of course, top priorities and securing the network is a vital part of this. 

For network professionals, there is no word more fearsome than “breach.” A security breakdown can mean lost data, stolen secrets, expensive lawsuits, and more. According to IBM, the average cost of a data breach is now US$4 million. This is why nearly every organization that knows what's good for it now invests in antivirus, data loss prevention (DLP), and of course, firewalls.

These days, however, we need to protect more than just data. Enterprise communications have grown into a multi-billion dollar market, particularly due to the widespread adoption of VoIP and unified communications (UC) services. This presents a new challenge that firms will have to face in order to gain a winning edge: voice security. IP phone services present a whole new attack area to potential hackers, a frontier that firewalls simply cannot protect by themselves. The essence of this challenge lies in the fact that we're talking about two entirely different types of information transmission that, in turn, require different security solutions.

We consider session border controllers (SBCs) to be a best practice in most enterprise contexts because of the improved security, control and overall VoIP system functionality they lend.

So what exactly are SBCs and why do you need one?