Benefits

Virtualized communication opportunity

The Icecom OperatorEngine can offer communication services for virtual customers, on-site customers, or residential customers. OperatorEngine platform owners can resell virtual parts of it for e.g. Internet telephony service provider (ITSP) together with all supported features. In turn ITSP acting as a virtual operator can offer environment or parts of it to its own business and residential customers without any hardware investments or maintenance costs. This creates new business opportunities easily and without large investments.

Single-point administration

OperatorEngine and its services can be configured and managed through one Interface. This means that the platform is easy and cost-efficient to maintain and alter.

Scalable, distributable server environment

The platform is developed to fulfill carrier-grade service levels and platform needs. The architecture has been designed to process SIP sessions with high performance, scalability, and usability. The SIP Proxy server of the environment is capable of handling thousands of calls per second and wide testing has proved stable.

Possibility for multi-installation networking

The platform uses SIP as its main communication protocol. It does, however, also functions as a border control gateway for H.323 and MGCP environments and can be connected to IMS. The components have been developed to match existing mainstream specifications that ensure interoperability with third party equipment. Furthermore, Operator Engine of Icecom enables companies to provide converged services through various networks and systems such as IP-, fixed, mobile and Wifi networks and IMS.

Least cost routing guarantees savings on phone costs

The use of the Icecom platform enables telephone communication services to be routed using the Least Cost Routing method to use the cheapest existing location in order to save on phone costs.

ENUM

ENUM is a component that combines Public Switched Telephone Networks with Internet Protocol Networks. It uses the domain name system (DNS) to map telephone numbers to Web addresses or uniform resource locators (URL) and it is a standard adopted by the Internet Engineering Task Force. ENUM is part of Icecom solutions and with it PSTN calls can flexibly be routed into SIP Proxy. Icecom OperaoterEngine configures ENUM entries automatically to guarantee fast service for the end users.

ENUM as part of the solutions enables its users to save money and increase control over and flexibility in their communications.

ENUM facilitates the convergence of communications networks by linking e-mail addresses, telephone numbers, fax numbers, and cell phone numbers for individuals or businesses.

Presence and application servers

These tools are needed especially in today’s multi office working environment in which work is no longer done in one location, but rather in several locations around the world. The Presence engine allows exchanging status information between the users.  The Application Server is the crucial element of Intelligent Network. It allows users to have advanced services such as IVR (interactive voice response) services, conference calling, Voice Mails and Instant Messaging services.

ICE methodology

ICE, a standards-based methodology, allows information workers and businesses to more easily communicate in media-rich ways across network address translators (NATs), a significant barrier to VoIP and video connectivity. ICE provides a rich set of solutions for current NAT issues with media. Icecom clients support the ICE methodology.

The ICE methodology was developed within the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) to address the impact of NATs on peer-to-peer media connectivity. Many proprietary media services traverse NATs by tunneling using HTTP or Port 80, but this approach is not as security-enhanced, robust or scalable as the ICE methodology.

TURN/STUN services

Traversal Using Relay NAT (TURN) is a protocol that allows for an element behind a NAT or firewall to receive incoming data over TCP or UDP connections. It is most useful for elements behind symmetric NATs or firewalls that wish to be on the receiving end of a connection to a single peer. Icecom solutions support TURN capabilities.

The STUN (Simple traversal of UDP over NAT) protocol enables a VoIP client to recognize the existence and the type of NAT or firewall and to bypass it.  Icecom solutions support STUN protocol. Together with TURN services, they can cope with challenging NAT or firewall environments and work in virtually any network topology.