The facts: Access worldwide signalling via Comfone's Internet solution

Comfone's pioneering solution to access Comfone Signalling via the Internet has been so successful that sites worldwide, covering the 4 continents of Europe, Asia, South America and Africa, have already been installed. The solution has proved to be cost-effective without compromising service quality. Stable, secure and much cheaper than leased lines, Comfone's 'Signalling Access over Internet' has been met by increasing endorsement and excitement in the market.

The Proof

Here we present a case study, some real facts and figures, to make a direct comparison between the service quality offered by leased lines and our virtual SS7 link. We took our customer, Oi, Telemar, in Brazil, as an example.

As a new entrant to the GSM world, Oi was keen to build up as many signalling relations as fast as possible. The South American operator wanted worldwide roaming capabilities for their subscribers and that is exactly what Comfone offered them. Oi chose to add to their existing leased lines by taking on Comfone's Signalling Access over Internet solution (SAoI) as a means of accessing alternative, additional Comfone signalling links. This gave us the opportunity to carry out some tests to measure the quality and effectiveness of our SAoI link compared to the more traditional method of leased lines.

We measured service availability of the leased line links and SAoI links over a number of months. The figures revealed that our access over Internet solution offered even greater availiability than the leased lines. Indeed, Oi, who won a record 400'000 new customers in December 2002, has expressed complete satisfaction with the solution.

Average monthly availability for signalling link from Oi, Brazil, to Comfone, Switzerland

Leased Line availability
Availability (%) = 99.72
Corresponding downtime = 1 hour 45 mins

SAoI link availability
Availability (%) = 99.97
Corresponding downtime = 10 mins

The fully tested solution drastically reduces operational costs while still enabling operators secure reach to worldwide destinations. Signalling Access over Internet, either an access solution for all your signalling requirements or a method of extending your existing signalling capability, is coordinated by Comfone's experienced staff and has already been implemented in remote countries where the Internet is still new, as well as in countries where the Internet is a well established means of communication.

Comfone's solution is based on SS7/IP mediation interfacing to independent Internet Service Providers (ISP). The Stream Control Transmission Protocol (SCTP) is specifically developed to address the stringent timing requirements of the SS7 signalling protocol.

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