unified communications

edgeBOX IP-
Centrex Survival
Services (ISS)
Module

edgeBOX v.4.6
TABLE OF CONTENTS

The “Survivability” challenge for IP-Centrex Service Providers..........................................3

EDGEBOX™ IP-CENTREX SURVIVAL SERVICES (ISS)...........................................................3

1.1 EDGEBOX™ ISS Features & Benefits.........................................................................4

1.2 Compatibility.............................................................................................................5

1.3 Additional information...............................................................................................5

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THE “SURVIVABILITY” CHALLENGE FOR IP-CENTREX SERVICE
PROVIDERS

Nowadays, voice offering from carriers and service providers is moving from traditional
PSTN lines to IP-Based services, based in hosted IP-Centrex infrastructures, minimizing
the deployment of equipment’s in customer premises mainly to a data-connectivity
device (modem or access router) and voice/fax terminal equipments (mainly IP-Phones).
Several market studies point that in a near-future more than 50% of traditional voice
lines will switch to IP-based phone services.

This change is occurring both in residential and enterprise worlds having service
providers already differentiated IP-Centrex offerings for “consumer” or “business”
segments.

While in residential segment the service is restricted to basic voice features, the service
for the commercial segments requires a greater number of telephone features, different
service levels and mainly the same levels of “fault-tolerance” and “service-availability”
they were used in traditional telephone lines.

Since the majority of IP-Centrex offerings is based in the data-network connectivity link
from the service provider, a challenge outcomes to SP’s guaranteeing the voice services
in case of connectivity loss between the remote customer site and the central IP-PBX or
any other service failure from the IP-Centrex hosted infrastructure.

EDGEBOX™ IP-CENTREX SURVIVAL SERVICES (ISS)

Critical-Links edgeBOX™ IP-Centrex Survival Services (ISS) module allows service

providers to offer a solution that will mitigate the “fault-tolerance” and “service-
availability” concern previously described.

In a “normal operation mode” (IP-Centrex connectivity) an edgeBOX™ equipment with

edgeBOX™ IP-Centrex Survival Services (ISS) will be activated in customer premises. This
edgeBOX™ unit should be equipped with the right voice cards in order to sustain voice
services in case of IP-Centrex failure or connectivity loss. In this scenario local (please

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see figure 3), SIP phones will be registered in local edgeBOX™, and edgeBOX™ ISS will
manage SIP phones registration towards IP-Centrex has it was the phones itself. Despite
of the phones being registered in local edgeBOX™, all the SIP traffic will flow
transparently between SIP phones and IP-Centrex.

All the functionalities provided by IP-Centrex system will work without any compromise.

In “ISS mode”, edgeBOX™ ISS module will monitor the connectivity status and link
quality towards IP-Centrex system and, in case of failure, will automatically switch to
“local IP-PBX mode” (figure 4), assuring all voice communications via the local voice
interfaces connected to PSTN or even to a second IP-Centrex VoIP provider over another
data-link.

When connectivity with IP-Centrex is restored, edgeBOX™ ISS will automatically switch to
normal operation mode represented in figure 3.

In this scenario with ISS feature enable, customer still can benefit of all other features
provided by edgeBOX™ system, like Firewall, File-server, Print-server, e-mail server, web-
server, Anti-virus, Anti-SPAM, Content-filtering, etc (please refer to edgeBOX™ manual
for more details).

1.1 EDGEBOX™ ISS FEATURES & BENEFITS

• Full Redundancy CPE for Hosted VoIP IP-Centrex Providers

• Simple configuration and easy deployment of remote locations (configuration can

be provided directly from IP-Centrex via FTP)

• Flexibility - Three edgeBOX™ models available (Office, Business and Enterprise),

will adapt to different end-customer environments

• All Voice interfaces available – FX, BRI, E1/T1, ATA’s

• Managed-Services enabler equipment – Service Providers can use edgeBOX™

system simultaneously to provide more services to end-customer (Firewall, File-

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 server, Print-server, e-mail server, web-server, Anti-virus, Anti-SPAM, Content-
filtering, etc)

• Full remote management provided via WEB GUI.

1.2 COMPATIBILITY

• edgeBOX™ ISS module is compatible with all SIP based IP-Centrex systems and
has been tested against the most popular IP-Centrex platforms.

• Minor adaptations might be necessary.

1.3 ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

• For additional information on the edgeBOX™ ISS module please contact your
regional edgeBOX representative or contact Critical-Links. Contact information in
www.critical-links.com .

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