May 24, 2007

SBCs and Cable: Perfect Together

By Jim Barthold

Session border controllers (SBCs) and cable telephony networks have not, as a rule, been included in the same sentence unless it was to say that the two are mutually exclusive. Then again, since SBCs were supposed to go the way of class 5 switches, it shouldn't surprise anyone that the vendors who make these things are scrambling for new audiences.

Thus NexTone's latest product release includes "key features that address the functionality and scaling requirements of tier 1 telecom operators (of course) and cable multi-service operators," the company said this week.

NexTone has built a PacketCable 2.0 interface into the product for deeper control of cable-based service architectures in support of advanced services. To do this, the company's working with cable vendor Camiant to give NexTone customers the ability to access the Camiant policy server to implement calls through the CMTS.

"We can signal the Camiant that we have a call that wants to process through the CMTS; it communicates with the CMTS, and it completes the call," said John Longo, vice president of marketing at NexTone. "When you're doing interconnect or from an application or something like that, that's where we're sitting."

There is, of course, no SBC on the drop or access side because cable doesn't need the device. It's a sign that the cable industry's telephony business is burgeoning to the point where interconnection is an accepted fact of life and, despite the most ardent hopes of cable operators that peer-to-peer will become day-to-day, there will still be a need to connect with other networks.

- Jim Barthold