Imagine you are sitting in Starbucks, sipping a latte, while a nicely dressed gentleman at the next table works on his laptop. If the man is Paul Floyd, vice president of research and development at iBasis, he might be running his company's network operations center.

IBasis, provider of wholesale long-distance voice over the Internet and prepaid calling cards, has taken an approach to its NOC that defies the traditional image of a large room with a bank of monitors and workers at their desks.

“Compared to very large carriers, we run a very efficient NOC, and it is also a NOC that I like to refer to as a virtual NOC,” Floyd said. “We have a location in Burlington and a location in Hong Kong, but we can manage our network from anywhere in the world that has a public Internet connection. So I can sit on my laptop at Starbucks and see the entire network.”

This is all possible, Floyd said, because iBasis doesn't operate the switches or “heavy iron” of most network service providers, using the public Internet as the backbone for its networks. “We use multiple ISPs, and through our NOC, we can easily route traffic from one provider to another on an automated basis,” he said. “We don't react after the fact to network problems; we are proactive and self-healing in our network. We have a level of automation and efficiency that is unprecedented.”

The company, in turn, sells VoIP services to about 500 service providers globally, including big ones like Skype.

The iBasis network is built on Cisco Systems routers and applications, which are built into the routing platform, as well as some standard gear like Remedy for trouble-ticketing and HP OpenView for monitoring and alarming, said Doug Reed, senior director of the NOC.

“We have other tools that we've developed that allow us to handle all the monitoring of the Internet and ISPs around the world,” Reed said. “All are Web- or client-based, and they all are accessible from anywhere in the world through an Internet connection.”

The NOC access is through virtual private network connections, which are secure. The company has employed what Reed calls “world-class experts” to make certain its virtual NOC remains secure. A major advantage of the virtual system is the ability for iBasis employees to monitor what's going on from home or on the road, as they did on Christmas Day — the busiest day of the VoIP calling year, Reed said.

That doesn't mean the Burlington facility was empty. iBasis also maintains a more traditional NOC site there for customer demonstrations

Customers can sign onto a portal and get real-time information about how their traffic is being handled, Floyd said.