Tags: Network

Reduce Telecommunications Costs with NEC NETWORK CONNECT

Posted by Joe Salisbury on Posted in Contact Center, Customer Experience, Education, Enterprise, Finance, Government, Healthcare, Hospitality, Retail, Unified Communications Tagged , , , , , , , ,

The cost of enterprise telecommunications are staggering as many organizations are forced to rely on multiple vendors to achieve network redundancy, availability and cost effectiveness.

Today, NEC is introducing an artificial intelligence (AI) powered call-routing solution that automatically matches each call with the most efficient and cost-effective carrier solution available. NETWORK CONNECT Intelligent Call Routing is simple to deploy, provides unmatched reliability and reduces telecommunications spending up to 30%, or more.  What’s equally exciting is that NETWORK CONNECT provides users unprecedented visibility and control of their voice activity through a single dashboard across the entire enterprise. For the first time, enterprise customers are in complete control of their telecommunications voice networks.

Imagine if you assembled hundreds of telecom carriers in a single room and asked them to compete for your business on every call. With NETWORK CONNECT by NEC, if one carrier is having an issue, it’s removed automatically and another carrier bids to earn your business. If a carrier raises their price, another carrier may choose to lower theirs to earn your business. All of this happens transparently while each call is transmitted through the most effective and best quality path offering a ‘pay per what you use’ pricing model.

Why limit yourself to the vulnerabilities that come with depending on one single carrier when NEC’s NETWORK CONNECT gives you access to the entire wholesale telecom marketplace?

NETWORK CONNECT cuts enterprise telecommunications costs up to 30%, or more annually.

What does NETWORK CONNECT do?

Together NEC and 46 Labs developed a call routing solution that provides enterprise customer’s access to the wholesale telecommunications market and where calls are routed to the lowest cost carrier. In simple terms, each call goes to the lowest bidder, in real time, improving operational efficiency while reducing telephony costs. Annual cost savings are dramatic versus using a standard carrier that may charge retail fees or round up call times to unnecessarily high phone bills.

How does NETWORK CONNECT work?

The NETWORK CONNECT intelligent call routing solution uses AI and machine learning to establish the most optimal call path. Once you have access to NETWORK CONNECT, you will receive instant access to hundreds of global carriers.  Calls are routed between carriers the same way your current carrier manages your call traffic. Businesses establish a SIP Trunk connection to the platform, through the internet and a PBX, and Network Connect will automatically handle all carrier selection, taxation, security, cost and quality optimization.

What information does NETWORK CONNECT provide?

With NETWORK CONNECT, IT staff will finally have the visibility and control to monitor and remediate voice network traffic issues.  Additional benefits include:

  • Full access to an up-to-the-minute assessment of telephony usage
  • The option to set daily and monthly spending limits
  • Integration of multiple sites globally in a single dashboard
  • The ability to set alerts, identify issues and automatically remediate network issues
  • Next generation reliability and redundancy
  • A single US based 1.800 number for customer service and support

Hundreds of voice carriers compete on a call-by-call basis to earn your business, so you are not locked into any single carrier and are always getting the best possible price and quality.

How is NETWORK CONNECT different from using a single carrier?

NETWORK CONNECT is essentially offering wholesale network prices. Your calls will still be routed via many of the same carriers you may use already but these telecom voice carriers will be working collaboratively and competitively to send and receive your phone calls. Much like the Internet, a call may take multiple paths and touch multiple carriers to go between sender and receiver. With more carrier options, the paths get shorter and call delivery is less expensive.

NEC’s NETWORK CONNECT also offers a single point of management across a multi-site or multi-national voice network. Automatic intelligent failover is built-in, as well as diversity in voice networks to virtually eliminate outages. When your business seamlessly integrates this call routing solution, you will experience no business interruption, improved voice quality and flexible licensing options.

Why should you choose NEC as your communications provider?

NEC has been providing communications solutions since 1899 and satellite communications since the 1960’s. A proven leader in telecommunications and recognized as a Top 100 Global Innovator, we ship more unified communications around the world than any other provider. NEC holds over 64,000 worldwide technology patents and our submarine cabling provides global telecommunication connectivity. NEC has been an innovator and communications provider for over 120 years. Network Connect continues the tradition of delivering excellence in communications through innovation, with a single point of contact.

How can I become a customer for NETWORK CONNECT?

The next step would be an assessment of your current carrier plan and existing costs. An NEC NETWORK CONNECT Solution expert, will work with your implementation team to define a path forward. You do not have to invest in additional infrastructure or change anything about your business operations. Simply make the switch to NETWORK CONNECT from your current provider and start saving. If you are locked into a current contract with your network provider, you have the option to cap your existing spend with your carrier and grow it with NEC’s NETWORK CONNECT. Many non-bundled items, like international calling or toll-free service can be moved into the Network Connect system while still maintaining your existing obligations.

Learn more about NEC’s NETWORK CONNECT, the first call-routing solution that gives enterprises access to the wholesale telecom market.

Contact us and find out how NEC’s NETWORK CONNECT can work for you!

OpenFlow Happenings: join us to learn about this transformative technology

Posted by Bryan Williams on Posted in Straight Talk Tagged , , , , ,

 

Awareness of the benefits of OpenFlow continues to grow, and the ProgrammableFlow team will be making a number of appearances in the next few weeks to participate in the discussion.  We would love to have you join us.

First off, take a moment to follow our new Twitter handle at www.twitter.com/NEC_OpenFlow.

Samrat GangulyLive this week from where it all began – the Clean Slate Program, in conjunction with the Open Networking Foundation (ONF) hosted the Open Networking Summit 2011, October 17-19 at Stanford.  The sold-out program featured tutorials on OpenFlow/SDN for engineers, and NEC’s Chief Network Architect, Samrat Ganguly, was a featured speaker on Tuesday, from 2 p.m. to 3:30pm, on the topic of “Redefining Network Virtualization for Cloud and Datacenter Networks with OpenFlow”.  NEC and IBM demonstrated how OpenFlow can be used to build high performance, open, data center fabrics.  The ProgrammableFlow switch and controller were featured in a number of other demonstrations.

October 25 is the OpenFlow Symposium, streamed live via Packet Pushers from the Doubletree Hotel in Silicon Valley.  In addition to NEC, panelists include Google, Yahoo, Cisco, Big Switch and Juniper.  From 10 a.m. – 12a.m. will be a business discussion around practical and applied OpenFlow Networks, and then from 2 p.m. – 4 p.m. will be a technical deep dive, again with a representative panel including NEC.   Both sessions will be archived at www.packetpushers.com.  This event is also sold out.

 

On October 27th, NEC will be hosting a dozen bloggers at our Santa Clara facility.  We’ll be reporting more later on this, and for sure you will be reading about us in the days to come.   Check out this link for Tech Field Day, which will be filmed live, and tweeted at length—you may want to add some of these Twitter feeds to your Follow list: http://techfieldday.com/.

Finally, I want to tell you about the Advanced TCA Summit, a free OpenFlow seminar planned for Tuesday, November 1 from 8:30-11:20 a.m., also at the San Jose DoubleTreee.  Register at https://www.expotracshows.com/advancedtca/2011 and use the code OPENFLOW.  Chaired by Craig Matsumoto of Light Reading, this free seminar will feature speakers from BigSwitch Networks, Broadcom, and NEC.  I will be addressing “Network Scale Out Using OpenFlow:  the Rise of the Superswitch” from 10:30 a.m. – 11a.m.

 

NEC and ESnet Present “OpenFlow with OSCARS” at Joint Techs 2011 Event

Posted by Bryan Williams on Posted in Straight Talk Tagged , , , , , , , ,

NEC and ESnet demonstrated network virtualization across wide-area networks at Joint Techs.Samrat Ganguly, Senior Systems Architect, for NEC Corporation of America (NEC) paired off this week with Inder Monga from ESnetat Joint Techs 2011 in Fairbanks, Alaskato present “OpenFlow with OSCARS:  Bridging the gap between campus, data centers and the WAN.” They were demonstrating for the first time end-to-end network virtualization across both LANs and multiple WANs, with the ability to program the network via ProgrammableFlow.  This has implications for both the researchers attending Internet2 Joint Techs, and their ability to connect and collaborate all the way through their networks, as well as enterprises implementing clouds across multiple data center sites in delivering IT services rapidly to their lines of business.

If you aren’t familiar with ESnet, it stands for the Energy Sciences Network, which is funded by the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science.  They provide high bandwidth connections that link scientists at national laboratories, universities and other research institutions, as they work together to solve the world’s biggest scientific problems.  Because of our OpenFlow expertise and capabilities, and dating back to NEC’s initial involvement on the Clean Slateprogram at Stanford University, we were invited to work with ESnet on this exciting virtualization and automation implementation.

Even though science networking uses network virtualization today, mismatches still exist between campus networks, HPC data centers and R&E networks.   These typically require manual intervention and limit network control and flexibility.   The presentation from Ganguly and Monga demonstrated end-to-end network virtualization and flow management, making networks much easier to manage and control.

In my experience, enterprise customers need to reduce the time required for network deployment, reduce operational complexity, and enable network level automation in supporting diverse application requirements.  Now, with the open source toolkit supplied by ESnet’s On-Demand Secure Circuits and Advance Reservation System (OSCARS), and ProgrammableFlow, together they will provide the automation and secure network service provisioning that scientists and industry need to maximize the full potential of cloud computing.

Networking researchers and administrators can access OpenFlow’s capabilities on ESnet’s Advanced Networking Initiative (ANI) testbed, using NEC ProgrammableFlow switches to test out advanced concepts in networking.  More information can be found at https://sites.google.com/a/lbl.gov/ani-testbed.   The media advisory about Ganguly’s presentation is at www.necam.com/pflow/press.ctm.

And for those of you who missed our press release announcing ProgrammableFlowat Interop, learn more about our award-winning Network platform based on OpenFlow at NEC website, or call today 866-632-3226 to set up at test of ProgrammableFlow at your own installation.