While they manifest as a mere blip on the radar today, the number of session border controllers (SBC) deployed in large global enterprise networks markets is poised to increase over the next 12 to 18 months. This is because the world’s biggest companies realize they can save a lot of money and increase their productivity by rolling all of their voice traffic onto their IP networks. They are in the process of doing just that.

They also realize that there is no free lunch. In order to transport and route intra-company IP-based voice and data traffic safely and securely between their worldwide locations and via SIP trunks that connect their networks to service providers and the outside world, enterprise networks will require much more protection and security functionality than they are afforded by their existing data firewalls. Enter the enterprise SBC.

Acme Packet (www.acmepacket.com) announced its NextSBC Reassurance Program. The program is designed to ease the technical and business obstacles to migrating users of other session border controllers (SBCs) to Acme Packet’s solutions. Under the program, Acme Packet will provide a free set of Net- ASSURE professional services for configuration migration and Acme Packet configuration optimization at no cost to service provider or enterprise customers. Acme Packet will also provide additional discounts off the list price of Acme Packet services for existing customers of non-Acme Packet SBCs.

Acme Packet (www.acmepacket.com) has announced more than 40 new features and enhancements incorporated into Net-Net OS Release 5.0, advancing the control functions of the Net-Net SBCs in the areas of security, service reach maximization, SLA assurance, revenue and profit protection, and regulatory compliance. Security enhancements include a SIP enhancement enabling the Net-Net SBC to differentiate between a massive endpoint re-registration event and a malicious registration flood attack. Admission control, QoS marking or mapping, and bandwidth policing have been extended to the data, text, image, and application content of multimedia sessions, such as gaming and multimedia collaboration media types. Regulatory enhancements include ETSI TISPAN-compliant DIAMETER e2 interface to an external location server and support for ETSI TISPAN interfaces.

AudioCodes (www.audiocodes.com) has broadened its session border controller (SBC) portfolio. The nCite 1000 is targeted toward smaller VoIP service providers that require a platform which supports up to 4,000 concurrent sessions. The nCite 4000 is targeted toward larger carriers requiring a scalable platform well beyond 20,000 calls. The nCite 1000 is provided in a 1U form factor, scales from 100 to 4,000 concurrent sessions, and is priced to be competitive in the smaller VoIP serviceprovider market segment. The nCite 4000 is a full-featured, IMS-ready, scalable SBC that initially supports 21,000 simultaneous sessions and is scalable up to 84,000 simultaneous sessions, while incurring less than 50 microseconds of media latency.