ECG is a leading Network Design and Operation consultancy for the Metaswitch Networks — Carrier Systems division. Since 2007, ECG has accelerated deployments by performing network planning, installation, training, and operational maintenance.

ECG’s brings in-depth knowledge of MetaSwitch Call Agent, Media Gateway, EAS, and N-Series Systems to solid IP Network Design practice. ECG’s Carrier IP and PSTN/SS7 Network Design experience extends to 1995.

The new CPE Management System is integrated with BroadSoft’s BroadWorks system, the industry-leading softswitch for Commercial VoIP Carriers. Features of the new system include:

• Zero-Touch Maintenance: Centennial’s Customers and Provisioning Team can enjoy new features, line moves, adds, and deletes that are automatically propagated to the CPE.
• BroadWorks Integration: The CPE Management system is fully integrated with BroadSoft BroadWorks, supporting all advanced hosted IP PBX features.
• SSL Verification: Centennial’s Cisco/Linksys SPA phones will refuse to communicate with unsigned CPE Management Servers. This provides defense for Centennial’s customers against man-in-the-middle and DNS hijacking attacks.
• Configuration Signing/Encryption: Centennial’s Cisco/Linksys SPA phones are pre-programmed with Centennial credentials. This prevents a customer or Man-In-The-Middle from recovering key system signaling and management details. Attackers cannot redirect Centennial’s phones to another system.
• Fault Tolerance: Centennial’s system maintains multiple copies of each configuration, on separate servers, to protect against server or network fault.
• Traffic Engineering: The new system supports traffic engineering, allowing Centennial to intelligently route customer SIP traffic to backup data centers.
• VLAN Management: Customer devices can be configured to use a Voice VLAN using 802.1q tagging. This can be managed through BroadWorks directly.
• Advanced Troubleshooting: Centennial’s customer devices report on network issues before they become problems. These data are transmitted to a central logging server, where they can be analyzed by Centennial operations staff.

Centennial PR Customer Technology Integration (CTI) Engineers Fernando Jorge and Alberto Leo were principle technicians on the project.

ECG, Inc. developed and implemented the system for Centennial PR. ECG Engineers Mark Lindsey and Jonathan Stanley worked with Centennial through the design and specification process, then implemented custom software and systems.

The tested design allows customers of each service provider to take full advantage of the breadth of CODECs and services the SIP feature servers and endpoints provide including HD voice and SIP-based video.

Centennial PR upgraded from BroadWorks Release 14sp3 to Release 14sp9. The coordination of the upgrade is complex with numerous interconnected components:

• The Nortel Communication Server 2000 provides SS7 PSTN access for BroadWorks.
• The Convergy’s Ceon platform is integrated with BroadWorks for provisioning.
• The Acme Packet SD provides security and session management features both for Hosted PBX VoIP and for IP Trunking to several carriers.
• Centennial’s CONUS-based Billing Department receives CDRs from six different BroadWorks application servers.
• Many tens-of-thousands Scientific Atlanta MGCP/NCS eMTAs are integrated with BroadWorks
• The mPathix voicemail system is integrated with BroadWorks.
• VoIP Customer Premise equipment from Cisco, Adtran, Linksys, Polycom, and Digium/Asterisk are used in numerous configurations.

“The BroadWorks software activation is the simple part,” according to project engineer Mark Lindsey. “The complexity comes in verifying the software will work with all of the integrated components.” The upgrade from BroadWorks R14sp3 to R14sp9 involves several hundred individual changes. ECG analyzed each change to ensure it would not create a problem in Centennial’s specific network, and designed and conducted regression tests to be used in the system upgrade.

ECG has extensive software integration experience with the BroadSoft BroadWorks platform, including integration with OCI-P for provisioning and feature management, as well as OCI-C for call control. The Attaché Call Control tool for Mac OS X is a working example of both of these interfaces.

The project is managed and executed by ECG’s founders, James G. Puckett and W. Joe  Demmons.