Voiceworks Changes the Communications Landscape in The Netherlands & Germany with Cisco

Voiceworks delivers telephony solutions from the cloud.

Voiceworks BV, an Almere based company in The Netherlands, is one of the largest and fastest growing VoIP & web technology specialists. They are achieving great success in the Dutch and German telecom world with its corporate Unified Communications (UC) and fixed-mobile-integration services delivered from the cloud both as a Mobile Virtual Network Enabler (MVNE) and Mobile Virtual Network Operator (MVNO). In 2015, Voiceworks expanded by acquiring OnePhone GmbH, a German Mobile Virtual Network Operator (MVNO), which was an important step for Voiceworks and ensures local presence in Düsseldorf with a larger range throughout Germany. In 2017, Voiceworks also acquired Xenosite BV, a dutch broadband and telecom supplier in the business market.

Voiceworks is one company that has a full range of disciplines present, including product development, customer support, installation consultancy and commissioning. They develop their communication software completely in-house under the Summa (voice, UC) and Summa Networks (HLR/HSS) brand and is considered leading edge for the telecoms sector. In recent years, the business telecom provider has developed several innovative services using the Agile software development model, and marketed to Dutch clients through its extended resellers channel of approximately 200 partners. For all services, the company uses the cloud, and the far-reaching fixed-mobile-integration is an important principle of the company.

What was Voiceworks’ challenge?

The challenge for Voiceworks was present in their current mobile packet core platform which wasn’t future proofed and was very rigid. It lacked key features on 4G or beyond, as well as lacked support for Private Access Point Name (APN) which was a requirement for their customer base. Also the support of the current vendor did not allow to quickly deploy new functions or fix operational issues. After a review of their vendor options, Voiceworks selected the Cisco Ultra Packet Core (UPC). Voiceworks engaged in a on-premises proof-of-concept (PoC) labtest. Due to the excellent online documentation and professional help of the involved System Engineers Voiceworks was able to quickly install the mobile platform themselves on their own lab COTS hardware. Voicworks reviewed both VMWare ESXi and Ubuntu KVM as hypervisor and ultimately choose a KVM deployment. This new mobile platform will enable Voiceworks to quickly deploy new services in minutes and easily scale operations. Currently deployed into its live network, and the solution has carried customer traffic with complete reliability, scalability, and quality.

The Solution Detail

The new Ultra Services Packet Core (UPC) solution delivered the virtualization needed along with the future proofing required. The platform also helped Voiceworks enable a network capable of:

Fast (self) Deployment: UPC is a light weight system which allowed for PoC deployment in a couple of days

Open System: UPC supports both KVM and VMware which gives Voiceworks a choice for the hypervisor

Cost Effective: UPC is attractively priced for smaller operators which creates a new mobile market

Private APN: this creates a complete new service for the Voiceworks resellers

Proven technology: UPC runs the same proven software that is deployed in more than 70 operators worldwide.