Africa is facing some of the most troubling issues of any continent, as a whole. Between political strife, warring nations, civil unrest, disease and everything else under the sun (quite literally), African nations are trying to reach parity with other prosperous nations, but still struggle to maintain a quality of living anywhere near first world countries. Though Africa has many resources to offer, many people remain poor and forced labour is still common, which is not only unjust, it keeps the economy stagnant.
Many developing countries have found that by improving communication, other markets will inevitably benefit as well. The lack of a solid communication infrastructure slows down every single process, regardless of market or individual effort. Fortunately, one company focused on providing communication to remote locations has enhanced their capabilities by implementing new hardware into their infrastructure.
EVOX is a smaller provider that is making headway in improving the communication capabilities for people located in more rural areas of Africa. Recently, they implemented an add-on SIP trunking Gateway from Sonus, known as the SBC 5200. This device integrates with existing IP PBXs and automatically routes traffic through a SIP trunk, handling the signalling borders between voice, data and media streams. The device has a well-defined QoS that parses traffic such that bandwidth utilization and packet rate are maximized, depending on the overall capabilities provided from the ITSP and concurrent gateway.
Currently, EVOX serves 20 of the 54 African countries. Though EVOX partners with companies like Genband that use Asterisk software to manage the operation of their gateways, the Sonus SBC 5200 adds additional power to infrastructure, boosting the overall capabilities of the IP PBX. Integrating the SBC 5200 brings about cost savings and improved performance because of its ability to recognize fake connections and attack patterns, which tend to plague many African communication networks.
Africa has recently passed South East Asia as one of the fastest growing regions of the world. Improved communications has been a driving factor in assisting countries like India climb in economic standing. The Sonus SBC 5200 may not end any wars, but it will help people who can make use of technology carry out tasks much more efficiently.
