BusinessWare Solutions
Based in Hutchinson, Minnesota, BusinessWare Solutions provides network, storage, services, and VoIP (voice over IP) equipment, along with installation and management services, for SMBs in central and southern Minnesota. In recent years, the company has seen significant growth in demand for open-standard IP PBX services to reduce costs, increase productivity, support mobility, and connect its customers’ sites. As these VoIP services evolved, BusinessWare Solutions gradually adopted Sangoma’s SBC (session border controller) technology to meet its needs.
Based in Hutchinson, Minnesota, BusinessWare Solutions provides network, storage, services, and VoIP (voice over IP) equipment, along with installation and management services, for SMBs in central and southern Minnesota. In recent years, the company has seen significant growth in demand for open-standard IP PBX services to reduce costs, increase productivity, support mobility, and connect its customers’ sites. As these VoIP services evolved, BusinessWare Solutions gradually adopted Sangoma’s SBC (session border controller) technology to meet its needs.
Business Challenges
A large automotive parts storage and distribution organization had a main site and eight branches across the United States. Each warehouse used a different landline telephone system with various carriers, with no integration between sites. To reduce communication costs, the customer decided to switch to a VoIP-based system to lower voice costs and consolidate everything under a single bill. This involved converting all sites to SIP trunks. The central site's IP PBX had a local gateway to connect to the local SIP trunk provider. Each branch had SIP phones registered to the central site over a wide area network.
Once the VoIP deployment began, it quickly became clear that voice quality would be a problem. “The main problem was latency in conversations when using IP phones. Latency is something you have to keep in mind when working with VoIP,” explains Sukraw. To solve this latency problem, the options were either to install a telephone system at each site, which would have led to a considerable increase in costs, or to deploy session border controllers (SBCs), he explains. (SBCs manage protocol conversion, transcoding, threat prevention, resource limitation, and billing at the network boundaries between enterprise and carrier VoIP networks.)
Sangoma Solutions
After reviewing the available SBC solutions, BusinessWare Solutions found that most could not provide the required functionality. “One provider said it had an SBC, but it was only a tunnel software that could not interact with SIP trunks, which meant it could not implement specific local dial plan rules,” says Sukraw. “Configuration was also a problem. Another solution was difficult to support because it had no graphical interface—only a command-line interface (CLI). That would have been a major problem given that the customer had no IT staff at the branches. We needed something easy to deploy and manage.” After reviewing all the options, BusinessWare Solutions chose Sangoma’s SBC technology.
As Sukraw explains, “Before deploying Sangoma, the call flow went from the remote office to the main office telephone system, then from the main office to the carrier. By deploying Sangoma SBC units at each site, we were able to eliminate this extra hop to the main office because audio from remote sites went directly to the carrier.” Sukraw notes that Sangoma proved to be much more than just an SBC solution. “It really comes down to the additional features. For example, it allows the customer to manipulate caller ID for certain numbers. That is a feature you would not normally expect from this type of technology.”
The deployment was carried out in phases to ensure that each site was satisfied with the desired configurations before moving on to the next. “Unlike other solutions that would have required external support, the Sangoma SBC was something we could troubleshoot ourselves,” explains Sukraw. “The Sangoma SBC has many built-in troubleshooting tools and a user-friendly web interface that greatly simplified deployment. In fact, we set up the basic configuration ourselves, and with minimal help from the Sangoma support team, we were able to configure all the units to the customer’s exact requirements.”
The Results
With the Sangoma units in place, the customer now has a single system and a single provider for all its sites, resulting in a 40% reduction in voice costs. At the same time, the customer can maintain a much more convenient and easier-to-maintain centralized telephone system, says Sukraw. Since completing this project, BusinessWare has continued to use Sangoma SBC solutions for its VoIP implementations. “We have never encountered any problems. Not only is the technology easy to deploy and cost-effective, but Sangoma support is excellent. They do not just respond with a few lines and a link. They take the time to explain things to you. With the growing demand for VoIP services, that matters a lot.”