Netrake:the controller is in session

ATLANTA--Peering between public and private IP networks could change from obstacle to opportunity as products like nCite, an IP Session Controller introduced today at the Voice on the Net Show here by Plano, TX-based startup Netrake, break down the barriers between the service provider IP core and the enterprise.

Netrake, a company comprised to date of almost 90% engineers, designs its own processors and builds a complete hardware solution rather than software alone, which Micaela Guihat, assistant vice president of product develop says is merely an appliance and doesn’t provide the performance require by carriers.

The nCite session controller, which has been tested with Japan’s NTT Comware, was built to solve three problems for VoIP. It allows peering from the enterprise to the carrier, from the carrier to the enterprise and it also secures service provider VoIP resources. The amount of VoIP traffic in the enterprise has not been substantial enough to convince large service providers that peering with the enterprise was urgent. But that could be changing according to a recent study by The Yankee Group, which predicted that a 60% penetration of IP-based PBXs by 2005 would force service providers to offer a peering option.

“Service providers waiting for a push from the enterprise to offer a VoIP peering service may lose a revenue opportunity…and may find themselves squeezed out of the enterprise in favor of a do-it-yourself VoIP by IP PBXs and Microsoft’s XP,” the Yankee report said.

Netrake’s solution could help connect the islands of enterprise VoIP solutions that without peering capabilities cannot initiate calls or use services outside their own private networks.

“To take advantage of IP you need to peer all these islands,” Giuhat said.

If The Yankee Group predictions for VoIP--28% of all U.S. business lines by 2005--hold true, that becomes a lot of islands and carrier-to-carrier peering and peering between the carrier and the enterprise will be essential for service providers to maintain market share.

“With Cisco shipping one million IP phones and Microsoft shipping 120 million XP platforms which are all SIP-enabled, all of a sudden you have a market out there that is primed for deploying VoIP,” Giuhat said.