Contact centers today — like all businesses — rely on modern tools like e-mail, instant messaging and data services for internal communications. They also rely on real-time interactive services like video conferencing, multimedia Web sites and collaboration tools to successfully serve customers.

 

These types of interactive communications use Internet Protocol (IP) networks, and to work properly the services must be delivered in a seamless way end-to-end. However, IP networks are not able to provide such seamless delivery without session border controllers (SBCs) to mediate delivery and quality of service (QoS) across network borders.

 

Burlington, Massachusetts-based Acme Packet (News - Alert) has made a name for itself by providing SBCs for enterprises and contact centers. I recently got a chance to ask the company’s director of enterprise contact center solutions marketing, James Slaby, his perspective on the importance of SBCs, especially in the contact center environment.

 

Slaby, 25-year veteran of the high-tech industry, will be on hand at the Call Center 2.0 show next month to continue discussion of these topics; he’s co-presenting a session on September 16 titled “Technology Considerations for Contact Center Evolution.” The session will focus on the benefits and challenges associated with transitioning a contact center from TDM to IP.

 

JS: The conversion from TDM to IP: it has ramifications for every aspect of contact center infrastructure and operations, with huge returns in both CAPEX and OPEX.

 

JS: Don’t overlook call recording; there’s plenty of issues to think through as you move from TDM- to IP-based call recording. Like: “Where’s the best place to replicate signaling and media for delivery to an IP call recording system?”

 

JS: Understand that my perspective is focused on IP contact centers, since that’s where Acme Packet session border controllers (SBCs) are a big help. For a while, it seemed like Europe was enjoying faster growth, largely I think because of the wider availability of SIP trunks. Now that big U.S. providers like Verizon Business and AT&T (News - Alert) and pushing SIP trunks hard, I think that growth gap will close.

 

JS: On the upside, it offers real opportunities to improve contact center efficiency, get callers into the hands of the right people the first time. If ever there were a place to focus on decreasing human latency, the big promise of premise-enabled UC, the contact center is it. On the downside, UC adds a lot of sessions, with concomitant issues of performance, application reach, security, SLA assurance, and regulatory compliance. Reaping those benefits will require wrestling with some new challenges.

 

JS: If by that you mean more Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) in the contact center, I would say absolutely yes. What’s interesting from our perspective is how the approaches to securing software-as-a-service (SaaS (News - Alert)) applications looks an awful lot like how we secure VoIP and UC with SBCs; you put an appliance at the edges of the contact center so you can intercept the traffic, clean it up from a security, performance, regulatory compliance, and interworking perspective, and pass it on again.

 

JS: As usual, Microsoft will get its share of attention; the company’s huge presence in desktop computing demands that. I suspect Microsoft will find it tough sledding at first, but eventually the company will figure it out. Our SBCs have an important role play in contact centers that utilize Microsoft UC solutions, so it’s good news for us.

 

JS: I’ve only kept one eye on that space, but I think it has another couple of years before it makes a real impact beyond the kind of market noise it’s generating right now.

 

JS: It will happen, though you may not “see” it: a major outage in a huge IP contact center because of poorly-defended VoIP security threats. Like most big outages, you may never hear of it, or the real reasons behind it will be kept under wraps. (You’d do the same cover-up if it happened to you.)

 

JS: If you’re contemplating a contact center conversion from TDM to IP, my discussion of the benefits, challenges, and issues around confidentiality and security of VoIP and UC in IP contact centers should be of interest.