The next stop in our tour of VoIP systems vendors takes us to England, where appropriately named Squire Technologies, Ltd. provides carrier grade telecommunications products and services to customers in over 40 countries around the globe.
Established in 2001, Squire Technologies started as a consultancy specializing in Signaling System 7 (SS7). Squire quickly took this expertise and began building and delivering carrier grade SS7-based signaling components, which have evolved today into a number of SS7 products, including protocol converters and gateways; plus an extensive range of VoIP network solutions, including gateway, media gateway controller, and softswitch products. These solutions are all backed by a highly specialized team of signaling and protocol experts that strive to meet the demanding functional and budgetary requirements of the global telecommunications industry.
Squire Technologies’ products include:
- SVI9225 SS7 to PRI ISDN Protocol Converter: provides cost-effective, scalable SS7 to ISDN conversion, enabling interworking between SS7 and ISDN networks. The product has a high pedigree of worldwide signaling interconnect in over 50 countries, catering to both the small interconnect up to the large international points of presence networks.
- SVI9220 SS7 to SS7 Signaling only Converter: as there are a number of SS7 protocol variants in use throughout the world, this product provides full inter-working between any 2 of the supported 51 country variants, thus enabling more economical interconnections between dissimilar carriers networks throughout the world.
- SVI7225 SS7 Signaling Gateway: provides a means to terminate a SS7-based network via an Internet Protocol (IP)-based network. The signaling termination is then backhauled over a simplified IP Application Programming Interface (API) to third party applications. This allows rapid development of complex SS7 applications without the need to understand the complexities of the underlying SS7 signaling processes and protocols.
- SVI-MGC SS7 Media Gateway Controller: a VoIP-to-SS7 bridge, allowing the control of third party media gateways, and thus providing them with SS7 capabilities. The system also controls routing for all protocols on the media gateway, which allows for a comprehensive breakout from Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) networks to VoIP networks, and opens up the PSTN network to all MGCP/MEGACO-enabled media gateways.
- SVI-MG Media Gateway: enables cost effective, scaleable SS7 and PSTN network breakouts to VoIP networks, enabling enterprises to realize the cost and performance benefits of integrating into a SS7 carrier network. Where many media gateways only provide lower layer protocol conversions, this gateway provides full call control routing for SS7 traffic, without the need for third party media gateway controllers or protocol converters.
Squire Technologies Softswitch product, the SVI-C4 Class 4 Softswitch, is a carrier grade Class 4 Softswitch solution offering centralized VoIP interconnect with routing, PSTN interconnect, billing functionality, and additional key features. It supports SIP, H.323, MGCP, MEGACO, SS7, and SIGTRAN protocols, and is thus applicable to both the enterprise and carrier markets. The SVI-C4 combines a powerful signaling engine with routing, authentication, and billing, plus subscriber registration and border control facilities.
Its most unique feature is that it builds upon Squire Technologies’ strong SS7 heritage to provide a centralized call control platform that allows full management and routing of SS7, VoIP, and PTSN traffic in a seamless and integrated environment. The system can be managed in both a clustered format and a dual plane configuration, which allows for both redundancy and high performance of the system, with support for over 100,000 simultaneous calls. The SVI-C4 softswitch also provides an integrated SIP Proxy and H.323 Gatekeeper Registration Server, which allows for the registration of subscribers directly on the system. It runs on the Linux operating system, and is compatible with the Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) to facilitate system management.
Further details on the Squire Technologies architecture and products can be found at www.squire-technologies.co.uk. Our next tutorial will continue our examination of vendors’ architectures.
Copyright Acknowledgment: © 2006 DigiNet ® Corporation, All Rights Reserved
Author’s Biography
Mark A. Miller, P.E. is President of DigiNet ® Corporation, a Denver-based consulting engineering firm. He is the author of many books on networking technologies, including Voice over IP Technologies, and Internet Technologies Handbook, both published by John Wiley & Sons.
