Case Study:

Reducing Costs with SS7 Interconnect Upgrade – an Aarenet and TelcoBridges Partnership

Summary:

For telecom service providers aiming to improve network efficiency and cut costs, upgrading SS7 interconnects is essential. In collaboration with Aarenet and TelcoBridges, this client replaced outdated SS7 gateways, significantly boosting performance, reliability, and regulatory compliance.

The upgrade enabled the service provider to expand its network, support more customers, and reduce operational costs, all while delivering a better experience for its subscribers.

Background

  • The client is one of the largest Telecom and Internet Service Provider in Southeast Asia (“Telco”).
  • Telco offers a range of internet, voice, television, and smart home services for residential and business customers, locally in Vietnam.
  • Telco has hundreds of thousands of subscribers in its network and requires interconnection with every other carrier in Vietnam and Southeast Asia.

Challenges

  • Telco required to upgrade their TDM network equipment.
  • They required to replace the legacy softswitch and SS7 gateways for the following reasons:
    • The existing systems struggled with performance and support issues.
  • The legacy gateway vendor’s technical support was inadequate, making it hard to resolve critical issues.
  • In 2022 Aarenet partnered with TelcoBridges to design and deploy a new replacement solution with minimal disruption of services for the customers.

Solution

  • To update the network infrastructure, an SS7 to VoIP Media Gateway was required to integrate the new IP-based solution with the legacy TDM inter carrier connection. The solution included a fully redundant softswitch system and SS7 gateways (TMG7800), with High Availability (HA), and 24/7support.
  • A flexible, powerful routing engine was implemented to handle complex routing scenarios, including backup call routing between sites.
  • The solution offered a stable, secure, reliable, and fully monitored system.
  • The solution complied with local regulations, including Lawful Intercept, Number Portability, and SPAM & Fraud call detection.

Results

  • The installation of TMG gateways and an Aarenet softswitch resulted in commercial and operational cost savings for the Telco.
  • The TMG gateways’ Mean Time Between Failures (MTBF): 150,000 hours.
  • The TMG Gateway solution scaled from 4 to 10 units per site to meet growing service demand for the Telco.
  • The Telco expanded their SS7 interconnect network to another major city for geographical redundancy setup, now supporting 200-300K customers.
  • The Telco remained compliant with in-country regulations for carrier peer interconnect, which could only be established with SS7 E1s or STM-1s.
  • The Telco felt confident due to the continuous access to the local support team and the no end-of-life policy for TMG gateways.

More information

Building on the success of this project, Aarenet and TelcoBridges have maintained their collaboration in modernizing networks for additional carriers in the region.