Cisco Unified Border Element (CUBE)

If IP PBX is Cisco CUCM, CUBE is its best partner to connect PSTN SIP trunks. The multiple trunks can be from different PSTN providers. It also supports SIP forking for network recording.

Incentivized

• Call accounting (Integration with 3rd party applications for ease of use and comprehensive CDR's)
• Address hiding (Keeping your internal network secure with PSTN calls)
• Internetworking between multiple protocols
• SIP profiles (message/header customization)
• Billing, cost counting

Incentivized

• The expense of the device to run CUBE may have you looking outside Cisco for options.
• Requires additional DSPs for transcoding operations.
• There's a bit of a learning curve in getting this set up to work with your specific provider when using this as a SIP gateway.

Incentivized

The flexibility is great for leveraging SIP profiles and dial peers.

Incentivized

I've been using Cube for years and I like the way Cube handles a call. Minimum administration required once everything is set up correctly.

Incentivized

To be fair to CUBE and AudioCodes, my experience with AudioCodes was over 4 years ago, so their interfaces and CLI may have seen some revisions/updates. CUBE provides a unified CLI experience with the rest of your existing enterprise Cisco environment, whereas AudioCodes blend of a UI and CLI feel a little "90's" in comparison. It certainly can be a tad more friendly to someone just getting a feel for network devices, but the actual feature set felt harder to use as a result. I didn't have any reliability issues or stability issues with either device, though and the AudioCodes solution is less costly, generally speaking, if it will work for your environment.

Incentivized

• Saving money on PRI cost by switching to ITSP connections. Massive savings.
• TAC support is great. Having maintenance with Cisco gear is game changing for small IT shops.
• Streamline security. Great place for a Demarc.

Incentivized