Aculab Helps PBX Central With TDM-IP Integration

Delivering telephony functionality over IP networks, no matter how robust, is considered yesterday’s news. Customers – both large and small – demand much more from their service providers than basic voice communications; they seek the advanced services that will make their businesses more productive, efficient and competitive. This competitive edge is often delivered through a range of next-generation solutions, such as unified communications, collaboration, Web conferencing and integration with other business processes. The hosted communications market is certainly capitalizing on this trend, as evidenced by an increasing field of highly competent providers, all of whom are eager to compete on technology as well as price. In the hosted world, innovation simply means staying ahead of the competition.

Yet, integrating new technology into a legacy network comes with its own set of challenges. How does a hosted provider seamlessly move its offerings to a next-generation platform without negatively impacting its customers’ businesses? And, how does it do it without incurring the enormous expense of replacing its infrastructure every time a new technology wave hits?

PBX Central, a hosted communications provider based in Austin, Texas, needed to find answers to these migration challenges. As a hosted provider, PBX Central supports some 200,000 end users around the United States, both through its direct service offerings and through software licensed to other providers. The company has earned the reputation of being astute and well-managed, and has developed a product portfolio that certainly rivals competing providers.

KBX, its proprietary communications solution, was initially built on a TDM platform. This first generation product was capable of providing the core IP functionality that its customers required, but was not the ideal foundation to deliver the next generation of services that would redefine the market.

“Our management team understood that the time would come when we would need to port over our core technology to an IP-based platform that would better position us for future growth,” explains Mark Castleman, CEO of PBX Central. “The key was finding a partner that clearly had the enabling technology that would allow us to move into an IP environment as seamlessly as possible. After much investigation, we found the right partner in Aculab.”

The concept of “extensibility” – or extending the lifecycle of legacy networks – resonates with providers like PBX Central that keep an eye on CAPEX and OPEX while striving to compete and offer new services in a manner transparent to their customers. According to Andrew Nicholson, product manager for Aculab, the notion of extensibility makes complete sense in a challenging competitive environment.

“We speak with many businesses and service providers who are eager to offer next-generation services to their customers, but must find cost-effective and transparent vehicles to make this happen,” explains Nicholson. “That’s why so many providers embrace extensibility. It minimizes the investment and disruption normally associated with the delivery of new technology.”

After meeting with PBX Central and understanding their specific goals and challenges, Aculab put together a solution centered on Prosody S, a software-based host media processing platform that provides a flexible and reliable foundation for providers looking to expand their service offerings – while retaining much of their existing infrastructure. By relying on the ability of Prosody S to equally manage functionalities originating in TDM and SIP environments, PBX Central has a non-disruptive path to an IP-based platform, giving it the competitive edge it needs.

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