Case Study:
Selectron Technologies Chooses ProSBC for PCI-compliant IVR
Summary:
Selectron Technologies, a provider of telecommunications services to over 500 state, county, and local governments. Two years ago, the company initiated an effort to offer hosted PCI-compliant Interactive Voice Response systems. Selectron chose ProSBC virtualized session border controller software to play a key part of their hosted IVR solution, providing call routing, load-balancing and resilience.
Background
Selectron Technologies’ mission is to empower local and state governments with cutting edge technology to reduce costs, better manage staff workloads, and improve services to their citizens. For nearly three decades, the company has worked closely with government agencies to develop a comprehensive technical knowledge base and thorough understanding of government business rules and processes. As part of this mission, Selectron provides telecommunications services, including Interactive Voice Response (IVR), to automate select government services, including permits, inspections, property taxes, and other transactions. This not only improves efficiency, but allows government agencies to expand their service hours from 9×5 to 24×7, a benefit to the communities.
Selectron is based in Portland Oregon, serving over 500 agencies across the United States and Canada. The company operates co-location sites in both Portland, Oregon and Atlanta, Georgia
“our hosted solution saves Selectron’s customers from having to meet rigorous PCI qualifications” – Mike Hannegan, VP of Technologies at Selectron
Challenges
Originally offered as an on-premises solution, Selectron’s IVR customers were challenged by the difficulties of maintaining Payment Card Industry (PCI) compliance. By migrating to a fully-hosted architecture, Selectron would facilitate PCI compliance in a controlled environment, also simplifying the new deployments and ongoing maintenance.
“our hosted solution saves Selectron’s customers from having to meet rigorous PCI qualifications” – Mike Hannegan, VP pf Technologies at Selectron
The company’s customers also wanted to perform large outbound notification campaigns, offering community announcements and emergency information. To accomplish this, agencies needed a solution capable of making many simultaneous outbound calls, route call traffic, and perform load balancing between SIP service providers.
To meet these requirements, Selectron would need a Session Border Controller solution that could operate in a virtualized architecture, capable of performing load-balancing, call routing, offered application resilience, and was easy to configure and manage.
“it seemed too good to be true”
“ProSBC is simple to use and simple to configure”.
“the ProSBC solution meets our application needs very, very well”.
Solution
After an extensive evaluation, Selectron chose TelcoBridges’ ProSBC virtualized Session Border Controller software.
“it seemed too good to be true” – Mike Hannegan.
Starting with the no-cost FreeSBC version, they were able to bring up a system for testing purposes before having to purchase ProSBC licenses.
“ProSBC is simple to use and simple to configure”.
Selectron’s new hosted architecture with ProSBC enables call distribution, transferring, and bridging functions. ProSBC’s reporting functionality enables the export of data for billing to Selectron’s customers.
“the ProSBC solution meets our application needs very, very well”.
“TelcoBridges support has been fantastic, always ready with prompt and helpful answers”
“being able to support customers from collocated sites has reduced the work effort by at least 50%, because we can control the environment”.
Results
Today, after using ProSBC for about 2 years, Selectron has 5 ProSBC instances in two collocated sites, two in Oregon and two in Atlanta with a fifth for development.
Addressing their need for resilience, Selectron’s architecture uses redundant SIP trunks are connect to redundant ProSBC instances at each co-location site. In this configuration, if either a SIP trunk or ProSBC fails, all traffic transfers to the redundant unit.
“TelcoBridges support has been fantastic, always ready with prompt and helpful answers”
When Selectron first deployed ProSBC they had about 450 customers, most of them with on-premises solutions. Today, they have added 150 new customers to the hosted collocated sites and transferred 150 of their on-premises customers to the hosted sites.
“being able to support customers from collocated sites has reduced the work effort by at least 50%, because we can control the environment”.
Looking ahead, Selectron plans to set up a collocated site in Canada for their Canadian customers.
More on Selectron at: https://www.selectrontechnologies.com/
More on TelcoBridges ProSBC at: https://telcobridges.com
View the interview with Mike Hannegan at: https://youtu.be/ZeaDvoFB7MA