Background
The Belgacom Group, Belgium’s national telecom operator, is the main provider of integrated telecommunication and ICT services in Belgium. Thanks to its continuous investments in cutting-edge technology, Belgacom offers its private and professional customers a complete range of telephony, Internet and television services.
Among the advanced enterprise services offered by Belgacom is Belgacom Explore Business Trunking solution, which enables the integration of voice and data traffic on one single data network, thus removing the need for ISDN lines. The Explore Business Trunking service’s infrastructure is a based on an Alcatel IMS platform. Companies connect to the network via their PBX (with a VoIP gateway) or IP-PBX equipment. One prerequisite for signing up to the service is that any equipment interfacing with the Business Trunking network has to be officially certified by Belgacom to ensure compatibility and to integrate regulatory requirements.
Recently, many companies have begun adopting Microsoft Lync as their enterprise unified communications platform, realizing the wide-ranging benefits that Lync can offer their organizations. Companies wishing to do so need to deploy third party media gateways or enterprise session border controllers (E-SBCs) that are qualified to work with Lync to ensure full compatibility. For a company using Lync to connect with Belgacom’s VoIP infrastructure, the whole solution, including any media gateways or E-SBCs, needs to pass Belgacom’s qualification testing which covers technical considerations and regulatory requirements.
Belgacom, therefore, was looking for a solution that would integrate the regulator’s requirements and allow customers that had migrated to Lync to benefit from its converged Business Trunking service.
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Certification
Any equipment interfacing with the Business Trunking network has to be officially certified by Belgacom
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Lync
Allow customers that had migrated to Lync to benefit from Belgacom's converged Business Trunking service
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Smooth interoperability
Smooth interoperability between Lync-based UC network and Belgacom’s IMS core network
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Emergency calls support
Meet Belgacom's requirements for the support of emergency calls
"AudioCodes’ great experience of developing and deploying field-proven VoIP solutions was critical in providing us with a solution that would meet our technical requirements, offering a better answer to Belgian regulation and contributing to the safety of staff working in VoIP environments."
Results
Having passed the necessary testing, AudioCodes E-SBCs can be deployed in Belgacom’s Business Trunking network to connect Lync customers to the service. Customers will benefit on the one hand from Lync’s extensive range of unified communications features and from Belgacom’s cost-effective converged data and voice trunking infrastructure on the other.
"AudioCodes’ great experience of developing and deploying field-proven VoIP solutions was critical in providing us with a solution that would meet our technical requirements a, offering a better answer to Belgian regulation and contributing to the safety of staff working in VoIP environments," stated Yashfeen Saiyid, Product Manager, Microsoft Unified Communications at Belgacom. "The AudioCodes solution enables us to tap into the growing Microsoft Lync community and offer our converged data and voice services to a wider range of customers."
