Nominum, Acme Packet Team for VoIP Peering Solution

Nominum, a provider of database technology for network naming and addressing functions, and Acme Packet, a provider of session border controllers, have partnered to provide advanced capabilities for VoIP peering.

In the combination of Acme Packet's Net-Net session border controller family and Nominum’s Navitas ENUM directory a client has been added to the Acme Packet session border controllers that enables them to do lookups on Nominum ENUM databases in order to make routing decisions.

By adding this capability to the session borders controllers the two companies provide a secure and cost-effective way for VoIP service providers to do direct VoIP peering between their networks and avoid the PSTN.

The session border controllers can take advantage of new functionality added to Nominum Navitas products. The Nominum products manage large databases of DNS information to links a phone number to a location on the Internet, namely an IP address. Besides the ability to manage ENUM databases, the Navitas directories also include links to third-party service bureaus in order to access information, such as local-number porting, which also can be used to route calls.

Nominum and Acme Packet are aiming their message this week at cable operators at the NCTA’s National Show in Atlanta.

“We think they are starting to reach critical mass where it is costing too much to go out to the PSTN,” said Devan Batavia, business development, Nominum. “This enables cable operators to peer and bypass the PSTN altogether. Every time they send a call to the PSTN, they are paying some amount.”

Cable operators are the largest single group of consumer VoIP providers in North America. It is estimated that cable operators had well over 2 million VoIP subscribers at the end of 2005

“The database can tell you a number of things,” said Batavia. “It can tell if the party being called is one of their own subscribers, or they are a subscriber of a peering partner and how to route to them. It could tell if a party has been ported in or out by local number porting.”

With this information, the session border controller can route a call directly within a network, to a peering partner or to the PSTN as necessary.

Nominum is known as the main commercial provider of DNS (domain name system) databases, which are used to look up IP addresses of services and devices on the Internet. It has adapted its technology for ENUM, which is a directory that links phone numbers to IP addresses. ENUM lookups, tend to be more data-intensive than standard DNS databases, because phone numbers change often and users often move locations. The Nominum directory can process 40,000 queries per second with a 1 millisecond delay.

Acme Packet Inc. www.acmepacket.com
Nominum Inc. www.nominum.com

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