Cisco Unified Border Element (CUBE) Reviews & Insights

We migrated several TDM trunks to SIP trunks with Cisco CUBE, and now we have a better view and resource optimization thanks to Cisco CUBE where we centralized SBC, firewall, demarcation, transcoding, and Trans rating. Now we're using a couple of Cisco 44XX ISR CUBES with Box-to-Box redundancy and our communication improves due to CUBE's capabilities.

Cisco CUBE is well suited in large enterprises with VOIP infrastructure, ISP with Tandem support, integration to MS Direct calls, contact center services with more than 100 agents, and businesses with several branch offices with TEHO needed to route calls between countries using the wan link. Cisco CUBE is less appropriate in small businesses with less than 10 users with legacy PBX systems.

CUBE is used as SBC in our organization and for our customers to secure SIP connections of PSTN providers. It also works as a SIP protocol adapter between IP PBX and PSTN SBC to resolve any compatibility issue.

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.

Cisco Unified Border Element is being used as a primary PSTN circuit across the whole organization. We have HA (High Availability) with redundant ITSP providers distributed across 2 locations for 100% availability.

• Call Cost (SIP Trunks are cheaper and more efficient way to make PSTN calls)
• Transcoding and internetworking feature
• Support of different codes
• Support for multiple call control agents
• Call accounting
• High availability
• Multiple vendor support
• Multiple ITSP support

CUBE is currently deployed as an SBC for our enterprise SIP platform to bring the service into our CUCM environment as we transition off of a plethora of PRI circuits scattered across our locations. The reliability and ease of integration (through documentation and support) into our network has really allowed us to expedite our move away from legacy telco circuits.

If you are in an environment that is primarily Cisco and switching from PRI circuits or other non-SIP circuits and are generally considered to be on an enterprise-grade platform, CUBE is likely a solid choice for you. From my experience, I cannot speak to the video handling that CUBE offers as we do not employ that, so hopefully other reviews will provide insight on that.

We have a few CUBEs in production. We land our ITSP connections on them and interconnect our sites. This prevents from buying expensive carrier PRI circuits. We believe this brings in savings over time and make the product more valuable.

Great for interconnecting sites with data connections (ITSP). Potential to save money on massive PRI expenses. Cube is more for medium to large enterprises. Cisco makes an appliance for all needs but I personally don't think you need one if you are under the 10+ call per second mark. With call volume that low you should find a different solution that is more designed for small business.