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Narus: Security Assurance Or VoIP Killer?
Originally published in Computer Power User, January 2006
Don't bank on free long distance just yet. As reported in the online edition of the prestigious IEEE Spectrum, phone companies in Egypt, France, Germany, and Saudi Arabia have announced they will block VoIP traffic using carrier-class software called IP Platform from Narus, a Mountain View, California-based company. This technology analyzes core IP network traffic at backbone-level speeds and can recognize data packet characteristics and the applications and protocols tied to them. Carriers then have the ability, whether or not they exercise it, to degrade the packet stream quality or disrupt it altogether.
However, Narus’ IP Platform may not be the evil force some enthusiasts might predict. As carriers start offering more and more IP-based services to customers, of which VoIP is only one, they need to understand how packets are flowing across their network. Without this it becomes difficult to manage everything from quality of service issues to billing and mediation.
"Take something like spoofing my VoIP number," says Steve Bannerman, Narus' marketing vice president, who personally uses VoIP provider Lingo. "That's very hard to do with analog circuits, but it's increasingly easier to do in a digital world. Carriers need to know what kind of VoIP is going over their networks, and they want to be able to offer a high quality of service for that. They want to be able to manage that traffic and bill for it. Could carriers use that technology to block VoIP traffic? Well, sure, but carriers we work with here have no plans to block VoIP. They want to offer competitive services."
Another facet to the Narus is security tracking. Some people are concerned that in the wrong hands VoIP could work against national interests. New government regulations have emerged that require any managed VoIP provider to provide "lawful intercept" to those calls--essentially legal wiretapping. Providers must accommodate this, and Narus’ IP Platform makes it possible.
Going forward, Bannerman says that Narus is working to adapt newer applications into its products, such as IPTV. Could the FCC someday require carriers to use IP Platform-like technology to track, garble, and block media files without certain DRM tags? We'll see.
