News

Media Gateway Controller now offers a simple way to add SS7 connectivity to the Lucent MAX TNT Universal Gateway

Squire Technologies (www.squire-technologies.com), the specialist provider of carrier-class signalling, SS7 and VoIP products and services, has today confirmed that its customer Eltopia, an ISP based in the USA, is using Squire's SVI_MGC Media Gateway Controller to add SS7 functionality to Lucent Technologies' MAX TNT Universal Gateway. With Squire's proven MGC solution now in place, the company has successfully provided full interoperability with Eltopia's incumbent system, which has in turn provided Eltopia with the dial-up and VoIP services that have enabled it to become a telecoms service provider.

"Even though Eltopia uses a number of different carriers (including Verisign, Verizon, Centurytel, Qwest and Embarq), Squire's Media Gateway Controller is able to provide us with full interconnect across all of them," says Will McHugh , CEO of Eltopia. "Now that we have SS7 Interconnect, our customers have had nothing but praise for the new TNTs, as their dial-up speeds have improved and the error rates that we were having have dropped substantially."

Although Lucent's MAX TNT Universal Gateway provides the TDM to VoIP media conversion, Squire's Gateway Controller provides all of the call control protocol termination, thereby controlling the media path setup via MGCP or MEGACO media gateway control protocols. With the added advantage of having an optional onboard SS7 signalling gateway module, the SVI-MGC opens up the PSTN network to all MGCP/MEGACO enabled media gateways.

"Previously, the most popular option for SS7 connectivity was to purchase a high-end Softswitch that provides a series of complex functions that go above and beyond SS7 connectivity – whether the customer actually needs this added functionality or not," says Andrew Cooper, Managing Director, Squire Technologies. "We believe that there are many companies out there who would be very interested to know that our Gateway Controller can provide this very same SS7 connectivity, as well as reliable, full-interoperability with products that now include Lucent's MAX TNT Universal Gateway."

The SVI-MGC supports and inter-works directly between SS7, SIP and H.323. CAS, R2 and Analogue inter-works with SS7, SIP and H.323 via MGCP providing seamless interconnect of disparate networks running different types and versions of VoIP and PSTN protocols. The SVI-MGC has full RADIUS support allowing for integration with third party RADIUS servers for AAA services allowing for easy integration into existing or preferred billing platforms.

Squire's SVI-MGC can be used to control a number of third-party media gateways, including those manufactured by Cisco, Audiocodes, Nuera and Lucent Technologies. Squire's SVI-MGC not only provides SS7 capabilities, but also controls routing for all protocols on the media gateway including ISDN, R2 and CAS, thus allowing for comprehensive PSTN breakout to VoIP networks. Squire's SVI_MGC Media Gateway Controller can even be applied to incumbent networks, with added interoperability provided over MEGACO/H.248.

Squire Technologies has launched its global Reseller and Referral Programs this week and made the SVI Suite of Products available to international resellers, distributors and integration specialists.

An established company delivering expertly-engineered signalling products, specialising in SS7 and VoIP applications, Squire Technologies offers a mature range of highly-scalable, cost-effective, carrier-grade products which provide reliable and adaptable solutions to the telecoms industry and have been deployed throughout the world.

The SVI suite of products has already brought Squire Technologies both global and regional distribution partnerships.

Combined with Squire's expert software engineering and the best-of-breed hardware used to manufacture the SVI Suite of Products, Squire Technologies can provide full training, installation and support services on each product deployment.

A bespoke version of Squire's ANSI SCCP Protocol Converter will be used to address Nortel's specific SS7 requirements in Russia.

Dorset, U.K. - Squire Technologies (www.squire-technologies.co.uk), the specialist provider of carrier-class signalling, SS7 and VoIP products and services, has today announced that a custom-engineered version of its ANSI SCCP Protocol Converter is to be used by network vendor Nortel. The customised solution will facilitate the transit of GSM traffic in Russia by converting two disparate variants of SS7.

Faced with the challenges raised by Russia's existing mobile infrastructure, Nortel sought a solution from Squire Technologies that would allow for inter-working between different versions of SS7. However, during the on-site installation of Squire's SVI 9220 SS7 Protocol Converter, Squire's engineers determined that the product would need to be customised to meet Nortel's requirements.

As a result, Squire re-engineered the ANSI SCCP Protocol Converter to allow non-circuit related signalling (such as TCAP) to be carried over SS7 routes, as well as other functionality that would allow Nortel to achieve its communications goals.

The period from the initial on-site investigation to the installation of the finished, customised product was less than two weeks.

"Squire Technologies' SS7 expertise and committed support allowed them to rapidly deliver against our specific network requests," said Sergei Kulyov, Nortel, Russia. "I would highly recommend them."

"Although most of our customers are happy with our products 'straight out of the box', it is essential that we can also offer custom-engineered solutions, like this one for Nortel," said Andrew Cooper, Managing Director, Squire Technologies. "With so many SS7 variants in use throughout the world, companies are increasingly looking for solutions that will provide inter-working between all of these different alternatives."

In addition to facilitating the flow of GSM traffic, the resulting solution will provide signalling-only termination (i.e. with no bearer channels terminated), thereby reducing the cost of additional TDM connectivity on the protocol converter itself. Also, since the TDM voice circuits go directly between the two interconnects, Squire's Protocol Converter will provide a higher bandwidth of interconnect at a reduced cost.

Squire Technologies, are proud to attend Cebit 2006 in Hannover to showcase their SS7 Media Gateway product providing SS7 to VoIP in a single box product solution.

Simon Dinnage Business Development Director at Squire Technologies "CeBIT is the ideal showcase for Squire Technologies, allowing us to meet clients directly to show how our innovative SS7 / VoIP products coupled with full installation, training and support packages can enable them to deliver their services rapidly, reliably and with full product support - essential when interworking with carrier grade SS7 networks.."

A robust SIP Interface, solid support infrastructure, and the ability to carry VoIP over legacy applications made Squire Nuera’s choice

Squire Technologies (www.squire-technologies.co.uk), the specialist provider of carrier-class signalling, SS7 and VoIP products and services, has today announced a global partnership with Nuera Communications, a leading provider of VoIP infrastructure solutions, who will now include Squire Technologies SVI SoftSwitch as a standard part of its ORCA GX 8 & 21 Series of high density carrier-class trunking gateways.

The new agreement will provide Nuera’s large installed customer base of ORCA GX 8 & 21 Series users with a carrier-class solution that offers centralised VoIP interconnect with routing, PSTN interconnect, billing functionality and more. By integrating Squire's SVI SoftSwitch into its ORCA GX series, Nuera's customers will also benefit from international long distance VoIP, point-to-point or full mesh connectivity, a SIP interface for peering and interconnecting with other carriers, as well as trunking for Class 5 VoIP networks.

The ORCA GX high-density VoIP gateways will be able to lower the cost of deploying and operating carrier-class telephony services dramatically, whilst also enabling new revenue generating services. Robust support of telephony and IP interfaces, voice processing, and network management features will enable carriers to quickly deploy and efficiently maintain the network.

“Squire’s SoftSwitch appeals to our large installed base, and its carrier class strength will provide very high performance and reliability. It really is a perfect fit for us," said Larry Greenstein, Director of Product Management, Nuera Communications.

“The service support and SIP interface were also key. Squire’s ability to support H.323 for legacy VoIP network interoperability, as well as inter-domain routing for peering between carriers, will provide immediate benefits to our customers."

Nuera's ORCA GX-Series gateways are already installed in more than 60 countries around the world, just six years after the products were launched. With the addition of Squire’s SVI SoftSwitch, the GX-Series will now be able to support up to 8192 concurrent calls, handling 80 calls per second, at 300,000 BHCA.
The NEBS-certified Linux platform – with Squire Call control and the duplex configuration - allows for a non-stop service. In addition, the new solution supports H.323 for legacy VoIP network interoperability, and also deploys a SIP interface for enhanced services such as inter-domain routing for peering between carriers, so that minutes can be exchanged.

"This is an extremely important partnership for us. To have our SVI SoftSwitch feature as part of Nuera's carrier-class GX-Series is further proof of our own commitment to quality and reliability," said Andrew Cooper, Managing Director, Squire Technologies. "With support for multi-vendor VoIP media equipment, complex routing, and PSTN interconnect, this combined solution from Nuera and Squire will deliver a wide range of high value VoIP-enabled services, including least cost routing, and national and international wholesale traffic."

Squire Technologies, Signalling Specialists to the Telecoms Industry, exhibited at Gitex, the largest and most successful IT and technology event of its kind in the Middle East. Held in Dubai between the 25th and 29th of September 2005.

The complete range of carrier grade VoIP and SS7 products were presented and received a very good response from international visitors.

This successful participation at Gitex will enable Squire Technologies to further penetrate the fast growing Middle East market.

The SVI suite of products has already brought Squire Technologies both global and regional distribution partnerships.

Combined with Squire's expert software engineering and the best-of-breed hardware used to manufacture the SVI Suite of Products, Squire Technologies can provide full training, installation and support services on each product deployment.

Squire Technologies proudly announces the launch of its Session Controller, a new and exciting addition to its existing range of VoIP and SS7 products.

The SVI-Session Controller provides to both carrier and enterprise markets a high performance scalable session controller enabling the delivery of secure, reliable VoIP traffic over disparate VoIP networks.

Supporting SIP, H.323, MGCP and MEGACO signalling protocols with inbuilt NAT and firewall capabilities all contained within a dual redundant architecture, the SVI-Session Controller provides a one stop carrier grade solution enabling continuous delivery of quality service maximizing revenue on VoIP services.

Squire Technologies exhibits at CeBIT

Squire Technologies exhibited at CeBIT, the world's leading trade show for Information Technology and Telecommunications, which took place in Hannover, Germany on March 10-16.

"We at TKC Telecom operate an international voice over IP telephone network, primarily for wholesale traffic between telephone companies in different countries. Our connection to the heritage PSTN has been primarily through ISDN PRI in the past," says Michael Shurtleff, Chief Technical Officer at TKC Telecom.

" However, our partners in West Africa insisted that we connect using C7 protocol. This was to facilitate billing on their side.

The Cisco gateway equipment that we use does not have a C7 interface, so we had a problem.

We were aware that Cisco had a solution but it was aimed at larger operations and was very expensive. This is why after looking at possible alternatives, we chose the Squire SVI_Softswitch. The SVI_Softswitch provides a C7 interface to the Ericsson PSTN switch in West Africa and works through MGCP protocol with a Cisco AS5300 voice over IP gateway, the type of gateway we normally use, at the same site. It is currently being used as the point of entry to the TKC Telecom network for calls originating in West Africa and destined for other countries around the world.

The Squire Technologies' Softswitch also provides us with call detail records (CDRs) which we analyse for call performance and use for our billing.

The equipment from Squire Technologies has enabled us to open new markets in this region that previously would have been very difficult to approach and we are now experiencing steady growth in our business as a result."

TKC Telecom is a privately owned next generation international telecommunications service provider whose mission is to provide its customers with long distance voice services using high quality voice over IP technology. The Company transports voice traffic on a wholesale basis over its IP network via several main hubs to specific international destinations.

The Company transports voice traffic to over 240 countries and territories including 15 destinations via its direct routes.

Squire Technologies, Signalling Specialists to the Telecoms Industry, exhibited at Gitex, the largest and most successful IT and technology event of its kind in the Middle East. Held in Dubai between the 25th and 29th of September 2005.

The complete range of carrier grade VoIP and SS7 products were presented and received a very good response from international visitors.

This successful participation at Gitex will enable Squire Technologies to further penetrate the fast growing Middle East market.

The SVI suite of products has already brought Squire Technologies both global and regional distribution partnerships.

Combined with Squire's expert software engineering and the best-of-breed hardware used to manufacture the SVI Suite of Products, Squire Technologies can provide full training, installation and support services on each product deployment.

"We needed specialized Equipment to handle the binding of Two Call Legs together, the request for the system to be able to function as a call back system and create a virtual one leg path as seamless as possible", says David Trad, Chief Technical Officer at Cell Wireless . "Over time we have moved in two directions, both VoIP and a TDM solution, we are presently mainly using the TDM Solution until we have completed our Interconnect with a VoIP carrier.

Our product is Housed an a Carriers Data Center, we interconnect directly into their network (Nortel DMS) VIA E-1 connections on our SS7 Equipment, with the Squire SVI VoIP Switch we presently have it running of a temporary solution which consists of Backing the Squire SVI into 2X CISCO AS-5300 which then have our Carriers E-1's plugged into the CISCO, so effectively we are going VoIP to PRI and then Handed off to our carriers network VIA PRI's.

Cell Wireless has been using Squire Technologies for the supply of Switching equipment and RTP routers since June of 2004, thus far we have purchased 3 Individual Units comprising of 8 Systems First Unit: 1X SVI VoIP Switch 4X RTP Routers, Second Unit: 1X SVI Soft Switch 1X RTP Router. Third Unit: 1X Squire SS7/C7 Switching Unit.

To date we have not experienced little to know problems, any issues that have arisen have been quickly and easily resolved by Squire and their Engineering Team, they are proactive with keeping their Switching Software up-to-date, and are quick to respond to any support requests majority of times before their stated time frame.

I would highly recommend Squire Technologies to any entity who is wanting to advance, build or replace their existing network: you can be assured that their Expertise in Signaling will take you to the next level."

Cell Wireless Corporation is one of the fastest growing telecommunication network marketing companies providing discounted cell phone minutes in the world

Cell Wireless Corporation is an international telecommunications company with innovative, proprietary software, operating on one of the U.S. 's largest communication platforms serving 14 million residential customers and more than 1 million coveted corporate customers. Cell Wireless Corporation operates a dynamic network marketing and cell phone time distribution program worldwide.

This carrier grade product integrates to all 3rd party Media Gateway devices supporting MGCP/MEGACO - allowing clients to use Squires either as a one stop solution provider with installation and post sales support or integrate with clients existing or favoured VoIP Gateways.

Coupled with SS7 circuit license agreements ranging from 120 to 8192 circuits to suit all budgets it provides a cost effective, scalable ,carrier grade network solution.

The SVI SoftSwitch integrates with all leading 3rd party VoIP Media Gateways that support the MGCP/MEGACO standards(e.g. Cisco AS5300 series, Nuera Orca GX-21 + GX-8i, Inalp Smart Node Series etc...) delivering SS7 to H.323/SIP out of the box.

Andrew Cooper, Managing Director of Squire Technologies, said 'by concentrating on our core competencies - signalling technologies - has allowed us to combine the best in SS7 to VoIP interconnect with the best in VoIP Media technologies to provide carriers/operators with a scalable, carrier grade cost effective VoIP solution.'

In November 2003 the Swedish telephone carrier Generic Mobile started to use Squire's Signalling System 7 Gateway based upon Brooktrout's SS7 platform. The GW connects the Swedish Public Switched Telephone Network and Generic Mobiles own developed modem pool used for paging and SMS (Short Message Service). The service is used for critical paging applications such as forwarding alarms to staff on-call duty as well as various machine-machine applications.

"We evaluated Gateways from three different suppliers regarding price and performance. The product that fulfilled our requirements best was SVI9225-PCI-4 from Squire. In spite of the tight time schedule - less than one month from order to operation - everything worked from day one."

"The product has been in operation for two month and we are processing thousands of calls every day. We are so far very pleased with the product and the support given by Squire Technology."

Generic Mobile Systems Sweden AB is a well established Mobile Telecom operator on the Swedish market. Generic Mobile is focused on messaging services and owns the Swedish paging network Minicall. The company is a member of the Generic group and a subsidiary of the parent company Generic Sweden. The Generic group is active in the IT- and Telecommunication arena.

August 2003

SS7 to ISDN in the Middle East

Squire Technologies successfully installs it's off-the-shelf SVI9225 SS7 to ISDN Protocol Converter in the Middle East. Simon Dinnage, Business Development Director, said "another successful install for Squire Technologies, our client initially required some help with identification of the exact variant on the SS7 side and we were able to supply on-site help and expertise - this is our value add - we are committed to providing a full end to end service for our clients."

April 2003

Squire Technologies complete interconnect testing

This was the final step in the successful build and installation of a Dual Redundant, Secure SS7 Frontend Server supporting IN capabilities over INAP for German based specialists for computer telephony Voice Robots.

Extract from Brooktrout press release: NEEDHAM, Mass., August 20, 2002
Brooktrout Technology, Inc., a leading provider of innovative hardware and software platforms that enable applications for the New Network TM , today announced that it has already enrolled 45 new companies in its recently launched Partner Access Network Program TM , a comprehensive, worldwide program providing many distinct benefits for its customers and partners. Brooktrout's Partner Access Network Program offers strategic benefits to OEM developers, technology partners, resellers, and ISVs designed to help them develop new applications and services, expand into new markets and, ultimately, grow their businesses.

"Squire Technologies offers its clients a complete service, from assisting with conception to full responsibility for design, implementation, QA and commissioning of a product," said Andrew JR Cooper, Managing Director from Squire Technologies. "By enrolling in Brooktrout Technology's Partner Access Network Program, we are able to work more closely with Brooktrout and its SS7 technology so as to provide a more professional design and development service to our customers whose products are developed around third party OEM vendor hardware."

Squire Technologies provides multi-protocol support and remote OA&M access, helping clients accelerate through DTAG interconnect

Our client required a front-end server that would provide interconnect to a Mobile GSM network and enable the generation of both SMS and ISUP signaling with the capability of injecting and detecting media on the bearer channels.

A Java virtual machine interface was used to back haul an IN based API to a remote application environment.

Squire provided the complete design, development, QA, interconnect and support of the equipment that was produced.