Interview with Jeff Dionne, CEO, Arcturus Networks

How do you manage to sell in a market dominated by the likes of Linksys?

Ans: When we come across Linksys these days, it is really Sipura. So they are just a standard competitor and not really 800 pound Gorilla. Because Sipura is now Cisco and Cisco is a softswitch vendor. There are other softswich makers. Not only Nortel but Sonus, Juniper, Siemens, Tekelec, etc. There is a lots of opportunities to partner with those softswitch vendors.

There are growing and complex security concerns related to VoBB? Session border controller vendors are mainly addressing it. Are you including any security modules in your software that goes into CPE gateway?.

Ans: We have secure provisioning using SSL. We also have our own VPN functionality. With VPN functionality you can use end to end encryption right to the switch. So we are doing that but we are also partnering with vendors on the softswitch side to make sure that we are compatible with whatever standards they rolled out. Initially we started working on SIP layer security system that would work on UDP.

Do you think security issues are best handled by CPE devices or by a SBC solution at the core of a carrier network?

Ans: You absolutely have to do both. The CPE devices have to implement what is necessary at the other end of the connection. I think it is not really a question of which is the best idea? It is the unified solution that is needed.

In your opinion what will the ATA product evolve into within the next few years?

Ans:  ATA will evolve into appliances which consumer can use for all of their digital access to media of all kinds - not only VoIP but also video streaming, etc. The majority of people who get involved with VoIP now still are early adopters in the market.  They also look for movies or things like that over their broadband connection. They are also looking for integration of WiFi. So consolidation of all the media into the devices ….

What are the prospects of an ATA becoming a residential gateway?

Ans: Our ATA already has residential gateway functionality built in them. The next step is at the media not to become a set top box but to become a media communications appliance. A device that can do video conferencing, that can do that sort of stuff, whether that ends up looking like a ATA or residential gateway or a phone with a big display. That is really going to depend on where the service Provider wants to position it.

What is your opinion about vendors (like VoIP Inc, Packet 8, i2 Telecom) who manufacture their ATAs and offer their own VoIP services? Have you ever been tempted like them to offer services yourself?

Ans: We are not tempted to become a competitor to them in that way. We think it is much more scalable this way.

Do you sell more through channels or direct sales?

Ans:  We sell in both actually. We sell a lot of licenses through our semiconductor partners where software is bundled with chipsets. We also have a direct sales team that sell to large OEMs and ODMs.

Can you tell us a bit about uClinux (embedded linux variant), and its advantages in low density VoIP gear?

Answer: uClinux is an operating system for very small devices. We use it extensively in our VoIP product lineup as an underlying operating system. It gives us the scalability, flexibility and allows us to control the platform. Many people use uCLinux in order to build innovative products. It is an open source project and is most widely deployed embedded Linux in the world. Of course numbers are very difficult to prove but may be around 40- 50 million deployments of that are out there. These deployments are not always VoIP related. We have consumer electronics like DVD players using uClinux. Since it is a generally applicable operating system, so one expects those large numbers. Specifically for VoIP, it offers stable TCP/IP platform. It provides all the multi tasking that you want and it also reduces the total cost of ownership for the product right to the end customer. You do not have to pay the licensing fees to some RTOS company and it also provides much better experience since it is fully flashed out operating system and all the features that you need in order to do that are there. That is one of the reasons why we continue to promote uCLinux and why we use it internally extensively.

How is Linux competing in general with Windows CE etc in the low density, single, or 2 port VoIP hardware products?

Ans: We do not run into windows CE at all. Major competitors are Wind River systems, VxWorks and Nucleus. VxWorks is a worthy competitor and has a good OS widely deployed for this class of device. Nucleus is much smaller and it has limited feature set. Windows CE is targeted mostly on devices that have a display. Some people put it in routers but its main strength is not as networking. So it does not make sense to carry all the overhead that you need for Windows CE. That is why we do not see it in the marketplace.

What functionalities do you think VoIP ATA vendors need to incorporate to secure the future of media gateways?

Ans: Security is a very big thing that ATA vendors have not addressed properly in the past. Mostly they have been using TFTP provisioning. Some consumers like Vonage want that the vendors provide them with fairly strong cryptographic security. We are doing that in all our devices. We use SSL for provisioning and we also think that secure voice is going to come along. You will be seeing RTP streams that are encrypted with SSL probably over TCP and steady UDP now. If you look at the signalling used by Vonage and all their new hard phone devices, you will see that it is all SSL based now whereas the older devices that they were shipping in 2003 and 2004 were all UDP and standard RTP with TFTP provisioning.