RTC Factory AB

Business areas overview

Communication Services

RTC Factory has set out a number of goals for its communication system. Vendor neutral, scalable, flexible and intuitive to use.

The communication platform is highly modular. A comparison between a traditional PBX and RTC Factory's IP Centrex platform is shown in figure 1. The communication platform uses open standards and is constantly tested against a number of other vendor's products to insure a maximum of interoperability and stability of services.

RTC Factory's services will work on any VoIP enabled device, including but not limited to hard telephones, existing analogue telephones with a terminal adapter, WiFi telephones and softphones on a PC, laptop or PDA. RTC Factory will also develop softphones when necessary to complement the existing offers. These softphones may be tightly coupled with the service and possibly integrated into the user's existing productivity software.

Figure 1. Comparison between a traditional PBX and RTC Factory’s IP service.

Technology Features

RTC Factory's unique strength is that we can provide a telephone service, which is equipment vendor neutral, based on open licensees and with high voice quality.

RTC, Proven telecom platform
The RTC platform was designed for outstanding performance, scalability and reliability. RTC platform is a powerful broadband telephone service designed for both business and residential users running since 2004. By taking advantage of advanced VoIP technology, RTC platform is a complete voice communication service.

Advanced Service Integration
RTC products may be integrated with existing CRM system which allows operators to offer VoIP customers on the same application they use for fixed, mobile customers.

Flexible Architecture
The architecture of the RTC product suite features support for multiple protocol stacks, open interfaces, redundancy and customizations. In fact it is built to be flexible and adaptable to the various demands on our customers’ network/services.

Customizations
One of RTC’s unique capabilities is our knowledge of customizations and adaptations of signaling protocols and interfaces for system management, billing, rating, statistics and much more.

Scalability
The RTC core switching partner’s scales from very small to very large systems. The RTC gateway architecture scales from one single node handling a small business or a small number of home users, all the way up to hundreds of thousands subscribers on a dual-node system with built-in redundancy and failover mechanisms.

Service Creation
The RTC products can be extended with various services and applications and our customers can continuously develop and modify new or existing Services. The various toolkits let’s you graphically design and/or produce your services and applications.

Open Interfaces
The RTC products feature open interfaces to easily integrate to other systems, both network to switching network as well as administrative systems. To connect to the network side we support a wide range of network interfaces e.g. SIP, SS7 ISUP, SS7 INAP. Towards the administrative side of the system we provide support for modern industry standard interfaces like XML, SOAP, RADIUS to mention a few.

State-of-the-art GUI
All user interfaces offered on all RTC products are very innovative and user-friendly. By adapting to similar look & feel as major PC applications and operating systems such as Microsoft, we lower the initial skill-level needed to use the service.

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Executive summery

System Architecture

Conceptual Overview

Proposed VoIP solution

The service platform consists of the following major modules:

SIP Proxy
The main entry point in the system for all SIP signaling from the subscribers. Handles user authentication and call routing. Also determines if and when a call must be sent through the Media Proxy.

Media Proxy
Used for calls if needed to get through NAT routers.

Prepay PSTN Gateway
Calls that should be rated goes through this gateway. It checks if the subscriber is allowed to make the requested call and if he has money for it and also cuts the call when time is out. The gateway is also responsible for inserting voice prompts during the different stages of the call.

Voicemail Server
Stores voicemail messages.

Presence Server
This server handles the XMPP based IM and presence functionality.

Provisioning Server (optional)
Handles client software remote configuring and updates.

Rating Engine
Used by the Prepay Gateway to rate calls, both before calls is set-up to determine max duration and afterwards to generate the CDR record with price information.

Admin backend
Keeps track of all subscriber data and provides it to the other modules in the system.

Web Portal
The public website where people can read about the services offering, prices and sign-up. Each subscriber can sign in to a secure part of the Portal to manage his own subscription, see call lists, buy additional services or top up his prepaid account.

Admin Web
The user interface for support staff and for managing price plans, statistics etc.

Database
The various databases required in the system.

Support Systems
Support Systems includes log server, platform and service monitoring, backup aggregation and VPN access server.

The software modules in the system match the hardware topology closely, since the hardware and software is modularized together. As seen in the above drawing much of the communication between the modules and with the subscriber uses SOAP/HTTP/HTTPS as the protocol. This allows us to use standard off-the-shelf load balancers for scaling and availability.

The SIP communication is load balanced using DNS SRV records, which allows the system to use round-robin load balancing with optionally different priority levels (loads). Since all parts of the system is redundant and load balanced, moving parts of the platform to a new location or setting up additional server sites will be as easy as adding more servers locally.

Launching services in new countries does not require any changes in the service platform. Web site needs to be localized and possibly new call tariffs in the new currency must be added. Also new local phone numbers must be inserted. However, the platform was designed to offer services in multiple countries from the beginning. Therefore there are only configuration changes needed.

Local requirements or regulations may need customization of some parts of the platform. The modular design simplifies this task. There are no needs to put up a complete platform in each new country where services are deployed.

Business Advantages

RTC Factory's unique strength is that we can provide a telephone service, which is equipment vendor neutral, based on open licensees and with high voice quality.

Proven Technology
Quality of Service
All RTC products are developed with the highest expectations on quality, reliability and availability, just as carrier grade telecom systems should be designed. To that we have added features for voice quality that is better than the PSTN.

Proven Hardware and Operating System
The RTC products are based on state of the art servers running Linux Operating systems.

Extensive Network Connectivity
PSTN interfaces
The telephony network interfaces have been part of the Interoute Communications Ltd. and Verizon Corporate Services Corp. (MCI WorldCom) from the start and features a multitude of protocols, generic or specific to operators, vendors or countries, all of which is enabled in the RTC products.

VoIP Integration
The RTC products have interfaces and patented technology for seamless integration with SIP and VoIP systems. New and existing services can easily be added to existing and Next Generation Converged Networks.

Operational Advantages
Services
All Value Added Services available for RTC VoIP today, are available on the RTC platform to enable you with a wide range of very competitive Services.

Provisioning
DeviceDirector is an automatic provisioning of services and devices. DeviceDirector gives the operator full control over the customer’s configuration, activation and logistics including wrapping and customisation of the adapters packaging.

Support
First line support is delivers as a complimentary service from 3rd part service provider. For the moment provided in Swedish and English, during 09.00 to 20.00 only.

Support
RTC provides Second line support, Carrier class support level that is 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and 365 days a year.

Service Creation
A powerful graphical development environment is available to enable you to rapidly design and deploy new services and features directly on your live system.

Turnkey Solutions
The RTC products are delivered as turnkey products or complete systems for fast and easy integration to your new or existing network/services.

Reliability and Scalability
We have chosen the best hardware and platform available from HP and Cisco to ensure outstanding reliability and scalability to provide you with the best investment possible.

Redundancy and Availability
The RTC products are hosted at PI.SE formerly Cables & Wireless, hardware and platform is connected with dedicated lines directly to Verizon and Interoute network to ensure outstanding reliability and scalability. The RTC platform is as well connected with TeliaSonera, TDC Songs and Cables & Wireless to provide you with the best connectivity possible.

Customizability
Branding
All user interfaces are built for rapid and powerful branding and customization to fit the needs and concept of our customers.

Open Interfaces
Our interfaces for billing, statistics and other system integration points are based on open standards, widely deployed in the industry. Existing relations with NetGiro, Lindorff Group, Payex (Faktab Finans & Wallit) facilitate the billing and payment process for our customers.

Product Customization
The RTC products may easily be customized and modified to fit any specific needs of our customers. It is one of the fundamental philosophies of RTC to provide our customers with tailor made networks and service systems.