Boosting VoIP services

James Etherington-Smith

James is journalist and sub-editor at MyBroadband, and editor at MyGaming. He is an avid gamer with an exceptional knowledge about gaming and related hardware...

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The use of Voice-over-IP (VoIP) is nothing new and most large telecommunications operators are already extensively using VoIP technologies to carry voice traffic on their networks.

VoIP services like Skype have also revolutionized the way broadband users communicate with each other, but when it comes to mobile and landline calls most consumers still pay incumbent operators such as Telkom, Vodacom or MTN for their voice service.

This is now starting to change. Internet Solutions, Connection Telecom, Vox Telecom and others are driving the uptake of both fixed line and mobile voice offerings. With cheaper and faster data connections, VoIP usage is set to increase significantly in future.

One company which is particularly passionate about creating an environment in which VoIP can blossom is XConnect South Africa.

Christopher Geerdts, CEO of XConnect South Africa, explains that they believe that the liberalization of the local telecoms market provides a unique opportunity in SA to empower the telecommunications industry to compete and innovate – leading to better pricing, quality and new products.

“Just as wholesale fibre has ‘democratised’ broadband, our vision is to provide wholesale voice services to democratise the voice industry. Our model is ‘neutral’, a bringing together of players – in the spirit of DFA and Teraco House – but with voice and rich communication services,” said Geerdts.

XConnect South Africa is promoting a SIP Peering Hub where each voice operator connects to the Hub once, and can then interconnect with all other participants.

“The current ‘spaghetti peering’ model is expensive (to maintain and administer multiple links), it does not scale well and does not easily support IP-services beyond basic voices across networks,” said Geerdts.

“Our proposed Federation model is a single, SIP Peering Hub. The Federation is an IETF standard and is also closely related to the GSM Association concept of the IPX, or IP Exchange.”

XConnect South Africa has already introduced a SIP Hub in Teraco House which follows the applicable standards as well as core IPX requirements.

“The idea is for smaller operators to gain instant access to multiple interconnects, but at high quality because they are direct. Larger operators can ‘outsource’ peering to us and don’t have to tie up their staff with multiple interconnect arrangements,” explained Geerdts.

Geerdts added that their vision is to build a ‘Federation’ in South Africa which can collectively reduce costs, grow quicker and not pay out unnecessary costs to others.

“As a service to South Africa (and for our customers across Africa) we will be able to offer termination or interconnect to a customer to anywhere in the world (local or international), at wholesale prices and (when on the Federation) with low pricing, efficient routing and more service capability,” said Geerdts.

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