Inside the SBC Market

The Session Border Controller market is a constantly growing one, and hasn't lost its momentum yet. Vendors of all sizes have SBC offerings, as demand in the North America market continues to grow, thus increasing innovation and supply.

While there is no clear leader in the SBC market, many companies are struggling for the top spot. Companies such as Sonus Networks, Acme Packet, and Cisco continue to fight over market leadership, but there are many more companies with excellent offerings as well. As SBC functionality is offered in a variety of services, both standalone and integrated, it's easy to find a good service that fits your company's needs.

Patton Electronics, for instance, has recently launched its VoIP Border Control for SMEs - SmartNode ESBR. It provides security, interoperability, a variety of options, bandwidth management, and many more functions that are essential for small and mid-sized enterprises. It also offers a range of VoIP Gateways and Routers, using VoIP border router functionality.

Session Border Controllers are important for VoIP networks, thanks to the control over the signals and media streams they offer. SBCs have grown from merely focusing on the borders between service network providers, and expanded to cover deployments between service providers' access networks and backbone networks. They can help defend against network attacks, provide improved connectivity, and boost the network's quality of service.

SBCs provide localized, one-stop policy management, as well as layers of redundancy to ensure speed and efficiency at all times. This, in turn, helps reduce the cost per session, so the savings begin to add up quickly. Of course, purchasing a single SBC is more effective in both performance and cost than purchasing multiple systems that may be individually cheaper, but add up to the same performance for a greater cost and hassle.

There are alternatives to SBCs, such as VPN tunneling and firewalls, but those do not provide the same level of security and efficiency that Session Border Controllers do. Fortunately, there are plenty of SBC options to choose from, so it's easy to find one that offers greater security and many more options. While it might seem like a more expensive option, one can't afford to be stingy with network security, and it saves money in the long run.

With SBCs, a company's VoIP network can become secure and efficient. As such, it's no wonder the market is so vital and competitive; it seems it will remain that way for some time, which is good news for both buyers and sellers alike.