OFC 2018 Theme: 400 Gbps

Ribbon Perspectives Emphasizes Software SBC, GPU Expertise and CPaaS

6/5/2018

Kevin Riley, CTO Ribbon Communications

We attended the Ribbon Perspectives conference in Los Angeles this week. Ribbon, the result of the merger between Sonus Networks and GENBAND, made the pitch that it is moving to the services oriented business of real-time communications over time instead of just being an infrastructure equipment company. Ribbon has differentiated from competitors in a few different ways, including that it is the first vendor to bring GPU-based acceleration to the telecom network industry and that it is offering a white-label voice/Communications Service as a Platform (CPaaS) service.

Kevin Riley, CTO Ribbon commented that:

Public cloud is viable for use in telecom
The company has deployed Microservices SBC at edge and core in a large Tier 1 North American Service Provider

Disruptive technologies that Ribbon is pursuing:

5G
IoT
Big Data/ML
uCPE
SD-WAN
GPU
CPaaS

GPU helps transcoding, complex media in SBC environments. Have invested for the past 2 years. 3.5x transcoding compared to DSP, 9x transcoding compared to CPU, 2x power consumption reduction.

Ribbon is using GPU in both private and public cloud, just won Japanese Interconnect at hyperscaler scaler for transcoding. Will likely pursue GPU acceleration for cryptography, video and DPI.

Additionally, the company emphasized its relationship for its new services - a win with Softbank Japan chose Ribbon Protect.

Ribbon's bets:

Analytics & Security
Kandy. Consumption-based. Only "white label go to market strategy"
GPU/NFV. Only company in telecom with GPU expertise

David Walsh, Founder Kandy.
Customer wins discussed during presentation:

Optus Loop
IBM/Softlayer got Hertz as first customer, using Kandy. IBM will become a major voice player, using Kandy, according to Ribbon
City of Los Angeles. Active Shooter application
KPN CUBES
IPC, 2,000 users now, rolling out further
Etisalat

David Walsh, Founder Kandy

The company highlighted several features about Kandy: IoS call-kit integration, Outlook integration, web browser integration, meeting collaboration, advanced conferencing, and an AI assistant capability. The company reiterated its focus is on the enterprise market, unlike Twilio who it says it focused mainly on the consumer market. The company declined to disclose revenues of its Kandy business.

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GENBAND perspectives 2017 conference

7/18/2017

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The GENBAND Perspectives 2017 conference in Los Angeles did a good job of highlighting the relatively smaller division at GENBAND - Kandy. Additionally, the company highlighted its advances towards an NFV World, its participation in so-called "Network Evolution" (upgrading old PSTN and VoIP systems to new VoIP and IMS systems).

Kandy. I asked CEO David Walsh to compare its business to publicly traded Twilio. He highlighted some differences between the two:

GENBAND/Kandy owns its own intellectual property
GENBAND/Kandy has a different target customer - it is going after large service providers and enterprises; his viewpoint is that Twilio is going after the 'long tail' of the market like small websites and such. (He did concede that Twilio's relationship with Uber is a significant one).
GENBAND/Kandy's go to market approach is different; it is focusing on SPs

NFV. The company highlighted its VNF Manager, and we understand that it can perform some aspects of orchestration when operating specifically on GENBAND VNFs. Additionally, the company and its partner Wind River (Intel) explained that using WIND ABS (its software virtual switch) and the DPDK capability, for many VNFs, can see as much as a 40x improvement in performance compared to running in a virtualized environment not using these two technologies.

Network Modernization. About half of GENBAND revenues last year were related to services; and a meaningful percentage of total revenues are associated with network modernization. Several customers made presentations discussing their experience in moving to new VoIP systems, replacing PSTN and older VoIP systems. We learned a few interesting things relating to this modernization:

British Telecom explained that voice minutes of use have been down 10% Y/Y ever since iPhone introduced (it wasn't clear if BT meant BT's results or those of the industry; we view this 10% figure to be too great on an industrywide basis, but directionally, it is correct). By 2026, the company expects 100% cutover to VoIP. By then, voice will get embedded into apps and / or is on mobile.
During the main presentations, we learned that there were 25M lines of Nortel gear in the installed base (PBX and Switches)

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650 Group Blog

Ribbon Perspectives Emphasizes Software SBC, GPU Expertise and CPaaS

GENBAND perspectives 2017 conference

CHRIS DePUY
&
Alan weckel

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650 Group Blog

Ribbon Perspectives Emphasizes Software SBC, GPU Expertise and CPaaS

GENBAND perspectives 2017 conference

CHRIS DePUY&Alan weckel

Archives

Categories

CHRIS DePUY
&
Alan weckel