Ericsson Virtual Border Gateway Function Certified

The following are the functional characteristics of the vBGF:

- It handles the media plane of sessions by forwarding Real-Time Transport Protocol (RTP) and RTP Control Protocol (RTCP) packets. Thus, it provides the dynamic pinhole firewall function. Pinholes are opened for each session based on instructions from the SBG. 

- It is controlled by the SBG over a text-based H.248 interface (Ia, Ix, or Iq interface).

- It can be controlled by multiple SBGs. The vBGF has fully meshed connections toward the SBGs.

- It can reside at the boundary between two core networks, performing the Interconnect Border Gateway Function (I-BGF).

- It can also reside between an access network and a core network, performing the Core Border Gateway Function (C-BGF).

- It supports media conversion between Internet Protocol version 4 (IPv4) and Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) based networks. 

It manages the Service Level Agreements (SLAs) through the Quality of Service (QoS) by performing the following:

1. QoS marking of IP packets.
2. Preventing bandwidth and resource misuse to secure QoS.
3. Collecting and reporting data for performance monitoring.