Q&A: NeuStar CEO touts DNS, VoIP plans

NeuStar, the provider of telephone and Internet directory services to the telecom industry, is on a roll. In February, the Sterling, Va., company reported eye-popping financials for 2005, with revenue up 47% and net income up 22%. In April, NeuStar purchased UltraDNS, which offers managed DNS services to leading Web sites such as Amazon.com and Match.com. Meanwhile, NeuStar is developing a service designed to ease VoIP integration issues for carriers. Network World Senior Editor Carolyn Duffy Marsan recently interviewed Jeff Ganek, chairman and CEO of NeuStar, about these developments. Here are excerpts from their conversation.

NW: How does UltraDNS fit in NeuStar’s strategy?

Ganek: It turns out that our products are very similar. All networks in North America depend on NeuStar for routing voice calls. Internet and IP networks depend on UltraDNS for routing DNS messages. We do the same things: We are both trusted clearinghouses of directory services for all networks.

NW: What are your plans for UltraDNS’ technology and staff?

Ganek: All of the senior management are staying. NeuStar’s reason for buying UltraDNS is that it is a very strong organization. They have great technology and operations. They run their systems in a highly reliable fashion 24-by-7, and they have a sales organization that’s producing great growth. We fully intend to keep all the employees. And we expect to expand the operation. We think they can exceed beyond what they are already achieving.

NW: What plans do you have for new services from UltraDNS?

Ganek: UltraDNS expands NeuStar’s capabilities in DNS and IP. Together, NeuStar and UltraDNS are the routing directories for more than 25 top-level domains, including .org, .biz,, .us and .mobi. Together, I expect we will be as essential to IP traffic as NeuStar is to all-voice traffic in North America. We already have products that NeuStar has announced that are complemented by UltraDNS offerings. One great example is SIP-IX. NeuStar announced SIP-IX in the fourth quarter of last year. SIP-IX is a standard that has been accepted by all the players in the industry as essentially the signaling and administrative function for VoIP, and we think it is a groundbreaking offering. The existing UltraDNS infrastructure — their global DNS network — is a strong platform for the distribution and accessibility of SIP services.

NW: What is the status of SIP-IX here in the United States?

Ganek: SIP is going to be to the Internet what Signaling System 7 [SS7] has been to the voice world. We’ve been the lead proponent of SIP-IX, and we’ve been participating at the IETF in its definition. We’ve created a platform that provides a broad range of SIP functions, and we signed exclusive agreements with Internet exchange points around the globe to exclusively put NeuStar’s SIP-IX platform in their data centers to make SIP functionality available by the transaction to any and all networks that converge at those network exchange points. Internet exchange points that handle more than 70% of the world’s Internet traffic have signed on to NeuStar’s SIP-IX platform.

For the full interview, please go here.