Ribbon Communications – How to choose the right EdgeMarc Intelligent Edge™ device

With many SMB and Enterprise businesses deploying voice communications over the Internet, they are looking to take proactive measures to prevent quality and security issues by utilizing session border controllers.

Many of these businesses are turning to Ribbon Communications, a company with two decades of leadership in real-time communications.

Ribbon Communications Session Border Controllers are highly secure and protect customers’ networks from attacks. Their Session Border Controllers deliver network security, routing, policy management, and even robust media transcoding.

And Ribbon Communications’ Intelligent Edge™ EdgeMarc series of enterprise session border controllers are specifically designed to provide high security, availability, and service quality for today’s cloud-centric communications services.

Their wide-ranging series of devices includes the EdgeMarc 2900e Session Border Controller and 2900a Session Border Controller.

The EdgeMarc 2900e and 2900a Session Border Controllers are ideal for SMBs, enterprises, and service providers that are looking to deploy Unified Communications while not compromising on security.

The Ribbon Communications EdgeMarc 2900e Intelligent Edge™ Session Border Controller is perfect for SIP Trunking or Hosted PBX applications. The solution supports bi-directional data rates up to 1Gbps and up to 300 concurrent calls.

The Ribbon Communications EdgeMarc 2900a Intelligent Edge™ Session Border Controller brings the same functionality of the EdgeMarc 2900e while adding both outbound and inbound analog line (FXO/FXS) support for applications such as PSTN fail-over, and overhead paging. This solution supports bi-directional data rates up to 1Gbps and up to 300 concurrent calls.

The Edgemarc 2900 series also has Power over Ethernet (PoE) models available, for those businesses that need PoE ports. Ribbon Communications’ EdgeMarc 2900e and 2900a PoE Intelligent Edge™ devices are both ideally suited for Cloud UC applications that require PoE functionality to power IP endpoints. This solution enables service providers to easily support locations with less than 12 phones with a single device (larger implementations can utilize external PoE switches).

While both EdgeMarc 2900e PoE and 2900a PoE Intelligent Edge™ devices have the same key capabilities such as 12 fully managed PoE ports, supporting data rates up to 1 Gbps and 300 concurrent calls, and multiple WAN ports that enable link redundancy and stateful SIP transfer, the EdgeMarc 2900a model includes 6 or 8 FXS ports to support analog endpoints and up to 2 FXO ports.

All EdgeMarc Intelligent Edge™ devices scale according to user demands, allowing service providers to deliver high-quality VoIP solutions to customers of all sizes and network configurations.

And, as with all EdgeMarc Intelligent Edges™ devices, the EdgeMarc 2900e and 2900a are managed with the EdgeView Service Control Center. EdgeView provides a comprehensive view of your VoIP network, enabling you to monitor performance and quickly remediate issues, leading to an improved customer experience and reduced costs.

Additionally, the EdgeMarc and EdgeView family is Microsoft Certified for Teams Direct Routing and is Certified for Zoom Phone.

While both devices help deliver high-quality business-critical communications services over public and private networks, which is best for your business?

The EdgeMarc 2900e Intelligent Edge™ Session Border Controller is ideally suited for Hosted PBX or SIP Trunking applications that do not require analog lines.

However, if you are an SMB or enterprise that is looking for a session border controller that is suited for Hosted PBX or SIP Trunking applications that also supports FXS and FXO connections for fax lines, overhead paging systems, or PSTN lifeline, then EdgeMarc 2900a Intelligent Edge™ Session Border Controller is perfect for your business.

Visit VoIP Supply’s Ribbon Communications Session Border Controllers page to learn more about the devices we have available. If you’re looking for more information or have more questions, give our VoIP experts a call at 1-800-398-8647 or reach out to us at [email protected].

If you have experience using either an EdgeMarc 2900e and/or a 2900a Session Border Controller, leave a comment and let us know what you think.