Mobile Voice VPN – a core IN service that you need to maintain
While for service providers value added, next generation services tend to grab the headlines, overlooking the importance of maintaining your ability to deliver core services is a serious mistake. Mobile Voice VPN provides one example of a foundational offering whose continuity may need to be addressed.
Intelligent Network services continue to play a foundational role in operator portfolios. Though not glamorous in the sense that they’re not thought of as cutting-edge, progressive offerings, services like non-geographic number handling and translation, emergency call processing, or operator support and contact lines are indispensable.
They are also subject to regulatory oversight – which means they may also be non-negotiable. Take emergency call routing and handling for example – that’s not going anywhere soon.
Particularly with ongoing obligations to provide emergency calling over 5G and an expanded scope through Next generation 112.
As such, preserving them and ensuring their good health should be a priority (though, as we’ll see, also potentially a problem). Many are significant – if hidden – revenue generators.
Mobile Voice VPN, which we’ll consider in this blog, is one such offering.
What is mobile voice VPN?
Let’s start by clarifying exactly what Mobile Voice VPN is. It’s a classical IN service that enables a private dialling plan for a business, enhancing and facilitating internal communications.
As such, it is triggered when calls to or from registered numbers are detected in the session layer of the core network – resulting in queries to the Service Control Point (or logical representation of this function), which provides information to govern the routing of the calls and their distribution through the organisation.
The calls are then delivered according to the rules and policies applicable – across the available networks, from 5G to 2G, and covering IMS and VoLTE.
Mobile Voice VPNs typically include a variety of functions which can be said to be a subset of those available in a full virtual PBX. The main benefit is the support of a private numbering plan used by a business – typically, a large enterprise, with multiple sites and many employees., deployed across different departments and teams.
In simple terms, the mobile voice VPN emulates the dialling plan that a company may have had enabled by its PBX and enables it to be delivered over native mobile connections, without the need for any application or configuration by the user.
This means that with a private numbering plan, every user and department can be assigned a short code for dialling. Instead of dialling the full internal number for a user or a department, a four-digit number would be assigned.
In a mobile voice VPN scenario, that same number can be used by mobiles – so an employee of the enterprise can simply dial, for example, 1123 to reach the accounts department, or 1124 for HR. Of course, the employee may save the full number and simply click the contact – but the contact uses the short code.
The above use case addresses how users interact with the service but how it is enabled is another matter altogether. For now, the point is that it allows the service provider to offer significant value to a corporate client.
A range of use cases
In practice, mobile voice VPN addresses a wide range of use cases. For one, additional features are applied to individual numbers or extensions, indicating call handling capabilities that are available for calls that are initiated by relevant individual users.
In all cases, the session layer detects the short code but doesn’t know the logic behind the routing plan. It needs to determine the correct routing, so a message is sent – generally via IN or CAMEL signalling but SIP can also be used in this way – to the SCP.
This message includes key information like the dialled number (the short code) and the calling party’s own number. The SCP has a database of all registered users, across different organisations and the configured short codes that are available.
Using this information and by applying rules, such as time of day, day of the week, location and others, the SCP can determine where the call really needs to be routed – and sends back the correct information to the session layer. The information includes the correct full number to which the call should be connected, and the session control layer takes place of the connection.
If the target code matches a team, the status of users in the team can also be checked, so that appropriate alternatives can be found.
Service logic and policies
What really differentiates a mobile voice VPN service is the specific logic that is applied. For example, these can include:
- Barring rules, restricting users from accessing certain numbers
- Charging rules, based on the agreements between provider and organisation that buys the service
- Number presentation logic, controlling the presentation number for calls made in the group
- Single number services, covering all devices associated with a user
- Call forwarding rules
- Routing rules to suit the organisation and its distributed sites
All these services are “bread and butter”. The point is that while mobile voice VPN may not hit the headlines as a service, it’s widely used and widely deployed by service providers for good reason. It enables customers to accrue valuable advantages.
Proof? Many operators have millions of users subscribing to their mobile voice VPN services – and those users come from some of the most important enterprises in their markets, across public and private sectors.
Is your mobile voice VPN EoL?
There might be a mobile VPN problem, though. For a growing number of service providers, their mobile voice VPN offer is no longer being supported by their solution partner and is approaching end of life with future support compromised.
Fortunately, Gintel has a solution to this problem that is proven with Tier 1 operators. Even better, it’s not standalone. Gintel can also add other IN services because our voice VPN is part of a complete IN Service Delivery Platform – so not only can you ensure mobile voice VPN service continuity, but you can also reduce overall costs by consolidating your IN service suite into a single, cloud-native solution that provides a pathway to support future network evolution.
Gintel offers an integrated, proven and highly scalable IN service portfolio. This includes our core Service Control Point (SCP), Service Data Function (SDF) and Specialised Resource Function (SRF). They are integral components of the Gintel Service Delivery Platform, so benefit from ongoing evolution and adaptation to the latest 3GPP standards, the transition to autonomous network operations, and the introduction of AI.
They are compatible and proven with all generations of network technology, so easily interface with both legacy protocols, such as INAP and CAMEL, as well as the current generation of SIP and Diameter.
So, if your mobile voice VPN service is threatened by supplier issues or changes to their portfolio, you can leverage a flexible framework that can, eventually, support all your IN services too.
Talk to Gintel
Gintel helps operators succeed in highly competitive markets, achieving differentiation for their business service portfolio. Our telecommunications heritage, know-how and experience are backed by a track record of delivering successful solutions to Tier 1 operators, MVNOs, ISPs and Systems Integrators.
We enable our customers to stay at the forefront of service innovation in a rapidly moving market, offering agility and flexibility and delivering profit for their business. Get in touch!
