Case Study:
Unifique’s Network Expansion with Telcobridges and Zictec
By Allan Piske, CEO of Zictec
Background
Unifique is a telecommunications provider based in Brazil, offering communication solutions to businesses, homes, and governments. Since its inception in 1997, Unifique has remained dedicated to connecting thousands of customers with state-of-the-art technology combined with a customer-centric approach that sets them apart. Unifique’s range of network solutions includes broadband internet, digital telephony, pay TV, data center services, and landline telephony.
In the early 2010s, Unifique teamed up with TelcoBridges and installed its first Tmedia 800 Gateway units for TDM interconnection with other operators. The Tmedia Gateways were configured to use TelcoBridges’ SIGTRAN protocol for building the SS7 signaling network. As the network continued to grow, more units were added. However, to overcome the limitations of a single unit handling an SP code and to preserve the legacy units, Unifique adopted an unconventional M3UA dedicated dual STP topology, utilizing two Tmedia units for this setup. However, as the network evolved and the number of smaller points of presence increased, the units became underutilized. To address this, the company decided to consolidate all regional interconnections to a single point of presence, allowing a single unit to handle four cities simultaneously.
Challenges
As Unifique’s network continued to expand, a capacity upgrade was necessary to support more than just M2UA links on the STPs. To address this challenge, Unifique converted all its units to TMP mode, resulting in a set of Tmedia 7800 systems that could support up to 1024 E1s on the same system. This transformation simplified the network configuration and troubleshooting, and enabled Unifique to upgrade the Toolpack software version of both new and older units with ease, as the controllers now operated cohesively and independently from the unit itself.
Solution
In 2018, new regulations required large operators to enable packet switching technology (SIP-I), and Unifique’s partner, Zictec, successfully tackled this challenge using Telcobridges’ ProSBC Session Border Controllers. Zictec was instrumental in the project by implementing and configuring the new technology solutions. The backward compatibility with the SNMP protocol MIB simplified the monitoring and troubleshooting of the new network model. Moreover, the interface and procedures were similar to the legacy TDM network, so the support team didn’t require any special training. However, Zictec provided ongoing support to Unifique to ensure a seamless transition and successful deployment of the new system.
Unifique was able to simplify the deployment of its new links by utilizing Ethernet over fiber optics and the BGP routing protocol, which achieved redundancy on the network layer. This allowed Unifique to rely on TelcoBridges’ advanced call routing engine to perform load balancing and failover on the call routing, even with multiple call routes to the desired destination.
Results
Unifique experienced significant growth in its voice network customer base and coverage, expanding from a few cities to three states in Brazil and from a couple of thousand customers to more than 100,000 all with the assistance of TelcoBridges’ resilient and future-proof hardware and software solutions. This growth has led to Unifique being selected as the Best Fixed-Line Telephony in Brazil for the second year in a row in Anatel’s (The National Telecommunications Agency) 2022 survey, highlighting the quality and effectiveness of their partnership.
- More on Unifique at: https://unifique.com.br/
- More on TelcoBridges ProSBC at: https://telcobridges.com
- More on Zictec at: https://www.zictec.com.br/