Providing Secure and Reliable IP-based Voice, Video, and Data Solutions: Edgewater Networks

“When we change the way we communicate, we change society.” – Clay Shirky

Managing voice and data communication is a critical strategic issue for the success of every modern enterprise. While nearly every organization uses a substantial number of communication tools (email, phones, text, instant message, etc.) they are often not completely integrated. While larger enterprises today are able to deploy and use the newest communication applications, smaller organizations may not have the appropriate infrastructure in place to communicate across the various medias in a seamless manner. To overcome these obstacles in an effective usage of information technology, optimizing the delivery of voice over IP (VoIP) communications to facilitate better business practices is imperative.

With the goal of optimizing VoIP Communications, Edgewater Networks was founded in 2002, developing communication solutions to help service providers deliver their solutions easier and faster to their end customers. For the last 14 years, its customer base has included the top MSOs in the country and service providers of all sizes, global regions, and methods of service delivery. The company is positioned as the number one market share leader in management of unified communications endpoints in the world and number two in the United States behind Cisco.

The company stands ahead of the competition by providing end-to-end voice communication management of the customer WAN and LAN. It is vendor agnostic so it can interoperate with any network management systems and voice endpoints.

Communication Service Offerings
Edgewater Networks’ Network Edge Orchestration enables service providers to deliver Hosted PBX and SIP Trunking solution to geographically distributed customers of any size and at any stage of deployment. Network Edge Orchestration has two primary components for complete end-to-end real-time communications, including both the cloud-based EdgeView Service Control Center and customer premise-deployed EdgeMarc Intelligent Edges.

The EdgeView Service Control Center resides in the service provider’s network, providing a central interface to all activity on the customer premises and the proactive controls to troubleshoot and solve voice and data issues while collecting advanced analytics on network traffic and endpoints.

The EdgeMarc Intelligent Edge resides on the customer premises, managing traffic on LAN and WAN, offering zero-touch provisioning and configuration, security, and actively managing service quality. All EdgeMarcs bi-directionally communicate endpoint activity to EdgeView, offering service providers greater visibility and control at the customer edge without having to diagnose and remediate problems with an on-site technician.

Future Focus Areas
Edgewater Networks’ present focus is in delivering quality solutions to a network of service providers and optimizing the voice experience for their customers. Its continued focus will be on ensuring that the solutions are the best in the industry and developing them to match the needs of the customer base. The company is also focused on expanding the footprint in the US to become the vendor of choice and developing brand awareness in Europe.

Case Study of a Delighted Customer
Complete Interactive Technologies, Inc. (CIT) delivers telecommunications products and services to a wide variety of commercial, educational and medical customers. When CIT brings a solution to a quality customer to solve a problem or implement a new system, it depends on the reliability and expertise of Edgewater Networks. The Edgewater Networks’ solutions have addressed some of the company’s challenges and continues to be an ideal system for serving customers. Edgewater Networks helped transform CIT’s solutions with the following benefits:

• Increased visibility
• Transparency
• Elimination of registration issues
• Improved call quality

Before deploying Edgewater Networks solutions, registration issues and low call quality constantly plagued CIT customers. Many customers encounter these problems when first trying to register a device with VoIP. Indicators of a registration issue include:

• No dial tone when attempting a call
• A former working DID number is no longer receiving calls
• Calls are going directly to voicemail or failover
• Customers can’t see SIP registration at the customer portal

Registration issues often stem from a router’s firewall blocking certain operations of the VoIP device. This can be frustrating for both the customer and the service provider trying to troubleshoot the issue. Knowing it needed support in addressing these issues and solving its customers’ woes with expertise and speed, CIT turned to Edgewater Networks’ various offerings.

Edgewater Networks’ intelligent edge solutions solved the registration issues with its high-quality performance and protection. The typical deployment involves running the EdgeMarc intelligent edge in parallel with the data network. Then, CIT assigns its own WAN static and routes all voice traffic out the EdgeMarc. An EdgeMarc intelligent edge is deployed with every hosted platform or SIP trunk. Currently, CIT deploys 150 of these solutions. The company also rarely deploys one of its solutions without an EdgeMarc because its installs are almost always hosted or SIP. It even routes all its own voice traffic at its offices through an Edgewater Networks EdgeMarc intelligent edge.

“Our technology is robust and scalable, our technical support is optimal.”

Meet the Key Executive

David G. Norman, CEO: David has over 25 years experience in marketing and sales with high technology companies. Prior to founding Edgewater Networks, Norman worked as an independent consultant and private investor to technology start-ups. He created and implemented First Virtual Communications international strategy where he built the company’s international presence in Asia, Europe and Latin America through a highly leveraged virtual corporation model. He left FVC after a successful initial public offering. Prior to FVC, he was Director of Sales for the Western U.S. and Japan for Cornerstone Imaging, a document-imaging company. He left Cornerstone for FVC after Cornerstone’s successful IPO. Norman was founder of Businessland Japan, a Tokyo-based network integration company. Businessland Japan was a joint venture between Businessland, Inc., Softbank Corp., Fujitsu, Toshiba, Canon and Sony. Norman holds a B.S. in Electrical and Computer Engineering from University California Santa Barbara where he also studied Japanese.