We recently had the opportunity to talk with a representative from Digicel Jamaica about the implications of voice over IP (VoIP) running over a mobile network. Digicel Jamaica is part of the Digicel Group, which has 11.5 million customers across 31 markets in the Caribbean, Central America and the Pacific. In the phone interview, Garry Malins, the Jamaica Networks security manager, shared some of the issues with VoIP for mobile carriers.
According to Malins, Digicel runs its own VoIP offer over the mobile data channel, targeting business customers with the VoIP service. But, as is required by the Jamaican government, the company also allows third-party VoIP providers like Skype to use the Digicel mobile data network as an “over the top” (OTT) service. Combined, these VoIP calls “can take up a lot of bandwidth” according to Malins; he noted that in February 2012, his company’s network was delivering as many as 22,000 VoIP calls per hour. The good news for Digicel is that for its own VoIP service, the calls generate voice call revenue, although OTT third party VoIP calls only generate revenue for the Digicel data capacity used.
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As with any other IP network, Digicel needs to identify which data traffic is an Digicel VoIP call so it can properly manage that traffic (and thereby offer a quality voice connection), along with the need to provide billing records. Fraud prevention is also a requirement, as is the need to understand the implications of OTT and Digicel VoIP traffic on the overall network as input for the network engineers. Finally, legal intercept of VoIP calls is also required to comply with law enforcement directives.
To address his security, operational and billing requirements, Malins’ team selected Fluke Networks’ Network Time Machine to provide the deep packet inspection and analytical tools needed to meet his needs. Commenting in a statement, Malins said of the choice, “The Network Time Machine allows us to look at connections from the customer to the core network, something the engineers frequently require to identify whether an issue is within our central network or out at the customer premises.”
Malins added, “From a monitoring and fraud prevention standpoint alone, we just recently used the Network Time Machine appliance to capture a considerable sum of additional call revenue. It provided an incredible ROI from just this one instance, and it doesn’t even touch on all the operational network benefits for Digicel.”
Our observations: We’ve seen the need for session border control (SBC) functionality and deep packet in wireline VoIP networks for about a decade now, and we expect that as more VoIP calls traverse mobile networks, the same security and management requirements will apply.
Our thanks to Malins and Fluke Networks for sharing the results of their experience.
