Leading UK-based provider of carrier systems and software solutions, Metaswitch, is working with major Indian mobile service providers to help them migrate to 4G services like Long Term Evaluation ( LTE), even as they leverage the ability to provide Internet based telephone services, commonly known as VoIP or Voice over Internet Protocol. A leader in the VoIP solutions and application server business, Metaswitch recently opened a regional office in Singapore to better address the burgeoning Asia market and last week expanded the breath of its portfolio to launch the ‘Perimeta’ Session Border Controller(SBC), addressing the interconnect needs of multimedia telephony services in both wired and wireless networks ( see Tech Note on SBC at the end of this story).
In a telephonic briefing for IndiaTechOnline, Simon Dredge, Technical Marketing Director, Metaswitch, explained that leading mobile operators like Bharti Airtel were accelerating their LTE plans for deployment in 2012, stepping up the migration from circuit to packet voice even while they rolled out rich multimedia services. They had to contend with a significant shift in the entire dynamics of session control – a challenge that an SBC like Perimeta addressed. The solution can support the explosive growth in Session Initiation Protocol or SIP (widely used for controlling communication sessions such as voice and video calls over Internet Protocol ), signaling traffic, brought on by services such as telepresence, while dramatically reducing the cost associated with handling ever-increasing multimedia traffic loads, he added.
With government green-lighting VoIP services in India, Metaswitch may be able to offer a compelling proposition to mobile telecom providers here, with their latest offering as well as their existing VoIP portfolio. Possibly unspoken, if implicit, is the ability of SBC to enforce requests for the lawful interception of network sessions—a feature that Indian providers needing to meet government’s provisions in this area might deem important in any technology choice they make.  http://www.metaswitch.com/

Tech Note: Session Border Controller
(Edited and condensed from Wikipedia see full entry here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Session_border_controller  )
A session border controller (SBC) is a device deployed in Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) networks to exert control over the signaling and the media streams involved in setting up telephone calls or other interactive media communications.
SBC's original deployments were focused on the borders between two service provider networks in a peering environment. This role has now expanded to include significant deployments between a service provider's access network and a backbone network to provide service to residential and/or enterprise customers
Session refers to a communication between two parties – in the context of telephony, this would be a call. Border refers to a point of demarcation between one part of a network and another. As a simple example, at the edge of a corporate network, a firewall demarcates the local network (inside the corporation) from the rest of the Internet (outside the corporation). Controller refers to the influence that session border controllers have on the data streams that comprise sessions, as they traverse borders between one part of a network and another.

Additionally, session border controllers often provide measurement, access control, and data conversion facilities for the calls they control.
SBCs are inserted into the signaling and/or media paths between calling and called parties in a VoIP call, predominantly those using the Session Initiation Protocol (SIP). SBCs are often used by corporations along with firewalls and Intrusion Prevention Systems (IPS) to enable VoIP calls to and from a protected enterprise network. VoIP service providers use SBCs to allow the use of VoIP protocols from private networks and also to implement strong security measures that are necessary to maintain a high quality of service. As the VoIP network grows and traffic volume increases, more and more sessions are passing through SBC devices.
Sep 19 2011