VOCAL SPRAG - the first and only VoIP service designed for vIPer™
The Secure Phone Registrar and Gateway (SPRAG) is a SCIP-216 (MER) compliant secure cloud phone service offered by VOCAL Technologies for the Sectéra® vIPer™ Phone and other Secure Communication Interoperability Protocol (SCIP) based secure phones and devices. VOCAL’s SPRAG may be used by public, private, and governmental agencies to facilitate secure phone communications over public telephone and fiber networks. VOCAL’s SPRAG service augments the public telephone network by serving as a gateway between the MoIP protocol used by these secure phones and V.32/V.34 modem communications over G.711 (SCIP 214.7) on the public telephone network. For situations where cloud access is not a fit, take a look at our on-prem Embedded SRAG TDM or Private SPRAG VoIP gateway solutions.
Sectéra®, TalkSECURE™, and vIPer™ are trademarks of General Dynamics.
To learn more about VOCAL’s secure voice gateway, request a brochure, demo, or contact us.
The Problems
Sectéra® vIPer™ phone and other secure phone customers often have issues operating from their on-premises secure location with their local telephone switches and/or their organization’s designated telecom provider. The SIP-based local telephone switches and/or telecom providers typically do not understand MoIP and related aspects in SDP negotiations. Hence end-to-end calls are relegated to use the lowest common denominator of G.711 communications of modem signals which is often un-reliable unless the organization has a premium connection to a telephone service provider connected to the nation’s telecom backbone. This can be true when the vIPer is in softmodem mode, or even when using the BDI PSTN Telephone Adapter (or FXO USB adapter, or “PSTN Connect”), as the FXS wall jack may not be truly analog, but rather a service provider supplied VoIP connection that has replaced what used to be an analog POTS line. Sometimes it is not even a SIP VoIP system, but a web based system such as Cisco Webex, or Microsoft Teams. These systems are completely different technology than the vIPer, and thus a separate service is often required to handle the unique aspects of the vIPer.
The real culprit faced by secure phone customers is operation over lossy packet networks even if the loss rate is very minimal. Data modem and fax machine operations typically do not work well in these environments unless special handling is provided. In some installations, a telecom provider offers a high grade, near lossless G.711 service which usually works well for fax operations. In most installations, however, fax has to be handled by a T.38 capable Analog Telephone Adapter (ATA). VOCAL supports data (and fax) modem operations with its Analog Modem Adapter (AMA) which may be useful for some vIPer™ phone and other secure communications installations.
For more information on the problems associated with MoIP, and why SPRAG is the proper solution – see our whitepaper on the topic:
The VOCAL Cloud Server Solution
VOCAL’s SPRAG solves these problems (and others) by being collocated and QOS controlled to a major domestic telecom carrier. All the major domestic carriers (AT&T, Verizon, CenturyLink, Level3 and Inteliquent) are well interconnected themselves. G.711 modem calls work well on these networks as VOCAL has demonstrated for years with its SAMS (SIP Analog Modem Server) and FoIP/T.38 gateways it has offered to other customers.
SPRAG works with secure phone devices as a secure voice gateway to these public telecom carriers. MoIP protocols are used in secure mode with the vIPer™ phone over the potentially lossy network connections from the secure customer to VOCAL’s SPRAG server. Once at VOCAL’s server, the G.711 modulated signals are exchanged with the other endpoint without loss (assuming the other endpoint has its own robust high-quality G.711 connection).
It should be noted that VOCAL’s SPRAG has been successfully used by over hundred customer terminals. Network connections varied from the ordinary terrestrial-based packet networks to cellular 4G/5G networks.
VOCAL SPRAG has been used over a wide variety of transports, including Satellite services such as Inmarsat, Viasat and Starlink.
Additionally, VOCAL’s SPRAG is fully capable of working through optical fiber connections, like the one on the Sectéra® vIPer™ Phone. Unlike a regular copper phoneline, a fiber connection is very helpful in SCIF (Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility) and TEMPEST (Telecommunications Electronics Material Protected from Emanating Spurious Transmissions) deployments, where copper connections are considered a high risk and require additional filtering and shielding.
Key Benefits of SPRAG
Cloud-Hosted
Access your secure communications from any location with an internet connection (copper or fiber), eliminating the need for complex on-premises infrastructure and reducing IT overhead.
MoIP Compatibility
Seamlessly integrate with your existing Sectéra vIPer™, STE/FNBDT, and other MoIP-compliant secure phones (SCIP-210, SCIP-214, SCIP-215), ensuring interoperability and protecting your investment.
24/7 Uptime
Benefit from highly reliable and always-available secure communication with our redundant cloud infrastructure and proactive monitoring, minimizing downtime and ensuring continuity.
VOCAL’s solution is available for the Sectéra® vIPer™, STE/FNBDT, and other secure phones.
Please contact us for more information about our vIPer™ VoIP secure cloud phone service.