The cloud has become a dominant player in the modern communication space. You can’t have a conversation about telecom these days without touching on Voice over Internet Protocol, or VoIP. As such, the devices that power VoIP are becoming more and more commonplace.
One such device is the Session Border Controller, or SBC. It plays a key role in the functioning of voice services like SIP Trunking, Cloud PBX, IP-PRI and Direct Routing. But what is it exactly? And how does it function? Read on to find out!
What is a Session Border Controller?
If we break down the name — Session Border Controller — we can get an understanding of what it does. So let’s start with the word “session”. In the telecom world, a “session” is a series of interactions between two communication endpoints that occur during the span of a single connection. A session could be a phone call, an instant message, a video meeting or even the sharing of a screen. The “border” refers to points of demarcation between parts of a network. And lastly, we have the “controller”. This is the most obvious piece: it controls the flow of data during the session.
Simply put, a session border controller allows two endpoints to connect to each other. It acts like a techy crossing guard, facilitating the passing of data between endpoints.
What Types of SBCs Are There?
Now that you know what a SBC does, we can talk about the different types of controllers. The three types of SBCs are:
Hardware: An SBC requiring dedicated physical equipment installed on your premises.
Software: A virtual SBC software running on your current server.
Cloud: A cloud-based SBC hosted in your VOIP provider’s network.
How Does a Session Border Controller Work?
The SBC is placed into a signal or media path between two parties in a VoIP call. When deployed, your SBCs can secure and control real-time communication sessions. This is done by using a back-to-back user agent (B2BUA). A B2BUA allows the SBC to terminate the received call and initiate a second call leg to the destination party. Whether your session border controller is hardware, software or cloud-based, it will control the flow of data to one point to another.
So contact our experts today and get the connection, power and support you need with our cloud-based session border controller.
