Nokia Unfurls eSBC to Drive IP, Voice Services for enterprise

Nokia has launched a new cloud-native Enterprise Session Border Controller (eSBC) that brings secure, ultra-high-quality IP voice and video services to enterprise customers.

Enterprises upgrading their outdated communications networks from IP PBX to UC and UCaaS systems face a number of challenges in ensuring high-quality voice and video calls, connecting existing islands of communications infrastructure and in protecting their networks against malicious attacks.

Acting as the gatekeeper of enterprise communications applications, Nokia eSBC software mitigates cyber-attacks, optimizes the use of IP bandwidth for communications and blocks unauthorized access attempts. It also delivers a continual high-quality IP voice and video experience by using call admission control to prevent network overload, and by simplifying and optimizing communication paths in the network.

Based on the technology that meets the stringent requirements of large communications service providers worldwide, Nokia eSBC allows enterprises to cost-effectively control, secure and manage media as well as signaling streams that cross the network edges. It is a cloud-native software solution that runs on popular hypervisors, providing enterprise customers with the latest features and capabilities while allowing them to pay for only what they need, resulting in reduced operational and capital expenses. It also allows them to easily connect all types of PBX, Voice over IP (VoIP), call center and UC systems within their networks.

Bhaskar Gorti, president of Nokia Software, said: "Nokia eSBC gives enterprises the same ultra-high reliability, quality and security that our service provider customers currently enjoy for their communications networks. It delivers a comprehensive set of capabilities that help enterprises protect their business efficiently and cost effectively. It also allows them to easily take advantage of new features as their needs change by simply enabling licenses or installing software updates."

Irwin Lazar, vice president and service director at Nemertes Research, said: "Plans for private cloud SBCs have more than tripled in the last year. Our 2018 Unified Communications and Collaboration Study shows that more than 35 percent of organizations are now deploying or planning to deploy SBCs as virtual software. IT leaders cite flexibility, scalability, and cost considerations as driving their decision to move to private cloud. Cloud-native solutions such as Nokia eSBC have the potential to address these enterprise requirements."

Leveraging automation and analytics insights, Nokia eSBC makes it significantly easier for enterprises to optimize the quality and performance of their communications networks. Additional features of Nokia eSBC include:

• Comprehensive communications security in a single software product provides complete protection for voice and video communications.
• Built-in WebRTC gateway delivers communications services directly to smartphones, tablets or any device via a web browser, while retaining protection for signaling and media interfaces.
• Leverages Nuage Networks Software-Defined Networking (SD-WAN) capabilities to optimize media routing between enterprise branches and implement additional security policies for voice and video traffic.
• SIP trunking reduces the cost to connect calls to the public telephone network and simplifies the communications streams within the enterprise network.
• Key interworking functions, including transcoding, call recording, signaling and media encryption, and Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) normalization, deliver maximum flexibility.