In today’s Information Age, it’s no secret that information is a company’s most valuable asset. However, keeping that information secret from potential eavesdroppers can prove difficult. Tapping into the twisted pair wiring of the local loop is (at least technically) not a very difficult thing to accomplish.While it is currently possible to secure conversations on a point-to-point basis, it’s not really practical to purchase and distribute secure encryption units to every contact on your database. The SNAP (Secured Network Access Platform) solution from Microlink might just be the answer you’re looking for. Designed to offer service providers and carriers an additional revenue stream in the form of low-cost enhanced subscriber services, SNAP is billed as the first network-based service platform capable of providing point-to-multipoint telephone line encryption for voice and fax communications. SNAP secures wireline telephone connections including standard analog (POTS) connections and ISDN lines.

SNAP provides three levels of security. First, it prevents your local loop from exposure to wiretapping as well as preventing anyone from deciphering whomever it is you may be talking to. Second, SNAP enables fully secure point-to-point communication when both parties subscribe to the service. Finally, the product’s architecture prevents even the operator’s personnel from tracing or monitoring a call. There exist, however, court mandated options to allow authorized personnel to operate a monitoring channel. The service is simple to use, too. The caller picks up the phone and dials the destination. The call is then routed through the nearest SNAP encryption gateway, which signals the caller as to the level of security (point-to-point or local loop only) available on that call.

Lucent Technologies took a giant step towards open systems with the release of their CentreVu Computer Telephony software, and for the first time announced their intent to support TAPI. CentreVu Computer Telephony software creates a standards-based CTI server for call centers that eliminates the need to dedicate separate servers for different API platforms. It simultaneously supports CTI applications written to major APIs, including the jointly developed Lucent/Novell Telephony Services API (TSAPI), Sun Microsystem’s Java Telephony API (JTAPI), and Lucent’s CallVisor ASAI. In the past, Lucent had declined to support Microsoft’s TAPI 2.x — partly due to shortfalls in TAPI’s third-party call control, and also because of TAPI’s procedure-oriented interface (as opposed to object-oriented). Lucent CTI product manager Ketty Ombadykow explained that Lucent feels these issues will be resolved in TAPI 3.0.

The synthesis of support for these popular APIs onto one server makes a lot of sense — supporting these major APIs will help companies integrate their computing and communications infrastructure, and leverage existing applications. To back their open software approach, Lucent is shipping a software developers kit that lets independent software vendors (ISVs) build applications for the CentreVu Computer Telephony software. The kit includes software for TSAPI, JTAPI, Lucent’s CallVisor, an application debugging tool, sample applications, documentation, and a simulator for the Definity ECS (Lucent’s communications server). In the past, ISVs working with Lucent have included Davox, NICE Systems, Vantive, and GeoTel.

The server software operates on a Windows NT platform, but it supports call center applications written for a wide range of computing platforms including Windows 3.x, Windows 95, Windows NT, OS/2, UnixWare, Macintosh, and Solaris.

Lucent also plans to license the CentreVu Computer Telephony software to other PBX vendors and PC-based communications servers for integration into their business communications solutions. The license enables OEMs to develop software that allows their products to interoperate with computer telephony-enabled applications supported by the CentreVu Computer Telephony server. It includes the necessary run-time software, documentation, and installation scripts vendors need to customize their call center and other business communications solutions. For more information about licensing the software, contact Ira Kucheck at 714-850- 6315. For general information, visit the company’s Web site at www.lucent.com.

The first equipment vendors to announce hot-swap support were the systems manufacturers. These vendors, who supply enclosures, backplanes, and CPU boards, provide systems that are "hot-swap ready," that is, systems that support hot-swap functionality, provided you can find a vendor who will supply you with hot-swap-capable expansion cards.

Hot-swap CompactPCI systems typically include NEBS-compliant enclosures; redundant power supplies; RAID interfaces (Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks); and support for various configurations of enclosures, back-planes, and CPU boards. In addition, hot-swap- ready systems provide I/O connections through the use of IEEE 1101.11- style rear transition cards, a refinement that simplifies cabling and permits front-panel access to peripheral cards.

Hot-swap-ready systems include those from:

Force Computers: This company offers the Centellis CT series, which provides 16 CompactPCI slots, two of which may be occupied by CPU boards, leaving 14 expansion slots. Force’s CPU boards include the PowerCore CPCI-6750 (6U) and the PowerCore CPCI-3750 (3U).

Although these products are hot-swap- ready, they will, as mentioned above, support hot-swap functionality only if they are used with hot-swap-ready peripheral cards. Fortunately, these are entering the market. For example, Natural MicroSystems recently announced the availability of hot-swap cards in its Alliance line of telephony products.

Natural MicroSystems’ CompactPCI AG Quad T1 and E1 boards offer hot-swap for Windows NT and Unix, four digital trunk interfaces, and a switching platform capable of handling up to 120 ports of call processing. In addition, the boards support CT Access, Natural MicroSystems’ integrated software environment for telephony and mixed media application development.

More generally, Natural MicroSystems intends to integrate hardware and software specifications as they become available, to maintain consistent software APIs, and to partner with early adopters and CompactPCI developers. All these objectives address the needs of OEMs, who will want to work with vendors who provide software support and integration and development services.

In summary, CompactPCI is one way to broaden the scope of telecommunications development. On the one hand, CompactPCI, through such attributes as hot-swap, provides the reliability and uptime demanded by telecommunications. On the other hand, by providing mass market PC technology in an industrial chassis, CompactPCI greatly enhances programmability. That is, CompactPCI brings telecommunications development within the reach of Windows developers. By extending development opportunities to millions of Windows developers, as compared to thousands of telcom developers, CompactPCI should promote a livelier, faster-paced development environment in telecommunications.

Let’s assume the average cost of Customer Service agents supporting a call is around $1 per call. If someone suggested to you that they could cut that cost, saving you about 90 cents per three-minute call, that would really be something, right? Nuance recently announced beta testing of Nuance 6.1, the latest update to the company’s flagship speech recognition software. The biggest advantage of this new version is that it increases throughput up to 25 percent, and as a result the average call time and compute power needed to run the application have decreased significantly. When you take an already robust product, and make it better, stronger, faster, etc., you cause people to come beating down your doors. Sure enough, Nuance vice president of marketing, Steve Ehrlich told CTI � that the orders are coming in almost faster than the company can handle them. And that’s a nice problem to have.

Nuance 6.1 is designed for conversational transactions, such as those found in typical customer service applications. In fact, United Parcel Service (UPS) deployed a nationwide automated package tracking system based on the Nuance software engine. Developed in less than four months, the UPS system was deployed on time, just before the busy holiday season. The system handles more than 100,000 calls per day throughout the United States, and serviced over 190,000 calls in a single day during the holidays.

The new version of the speech recognition software also adds full support for two additional operating systems, Windows NT and Digital UNIX. The product will also be available for Sun Solaris, IBM AIX, and SCO UNIX, and will support the following IVR platforms: Periphonics, IBM DirectTalk, Syntellect SpeecReco Server, VoiceTek, and CCS. Nuance 6.1 also provides support for Nuance Verifier, a speaker verification product that creates a voiceprint based on a caller’s voice. When used in combination with the updated version of the Nuance product, the level of security offered is simply not available in other stand-alone speaker verification systems. For more information visit the company’s Web site at www.nuance.com or call 650-847-0000.

We’re seeing more and more "gadgets" using CTI technologies to provide a value-added experience to consumers. These applications may not save you money, but they do enhance productivity and are examples of the growing influence of CTI into everyday life. Convers� Web, a plug-in module to Convers� Messenger from Conversational Computing Corp., is a suite of speech-enabled telephony and Internet applications designed for what the company calls "conversational computing."

Convers� Web uses "saycons" (short for "saying icons"). Similar to icons, saycons are activated through a mouse-click, or by simply saying them. They include commands such as "stop loading," "show favorites," "search the Web," and "print this page." Really, though, you only need to remember one command: "What can I say?" which calls up a help menu. When the application detects a link behind a graphic, or encounters a word not in its 110,000- word dictionary, it assigns a number to the link. Just say the assigned number and Convers� Web jumps to the link. If you want to switch back to hands-on browsing, say "Convers�, go to sleep." The program will sleep until you give it the command to resume.

To use Convers�, you’ll need Windows 95 or NT running on a Pentium 100 MHz or faster PC. Twenty-four megabytes of RAM and 10 MB of additional disk space, plus a sound card and microphone, will start your hands-free browsing. Currently, Microsoft’s Internet Explorer 4.0 or higher is supported. Download it directly from Convers�’s site, and you’ll pay only $29.95. You can also get the software on CD-ROM for an additional charge. Volume discounts are available for OEM licensing. For more information, contact the company at 425-558-7554 or visit their Web site at www.conversa.com.

As any network manager will tell you, one of the worst tasks of day-to-day management of a network has to do with cabling and the necessity to manually control the cross-connections of equipment. With the vast array of products and technologies typically employed at an enterprise of any size, there is an apparent need to automate some of the physical cabling changes. While some manual labor will always be required, NHC Communications of Montreal has developed an Automated Physical Layer Management system by which cross connections are changed on demand and on-the- fly, via out of band signaling or SNMP control.

In a study of 6,000 companies in the United States, each with 1,500 workstations or more, the respondents all agree on one thing: Downtime is a huge problem. Costs associated with downtime vary of course, but on average, companies are losing up to $1.6 million in productivity and $2.5 million in revenue every year, with cabling problems at the top of the list of culprits responsible for downtime. The time and money it takes to send some-one to a remote location to physically reconnect a cable to backup equipment is staggering. NHC’s solution offers a cost-effective, semi-automated method of bypassing much of the financial drain on companies’ budgets.

One of the key elements to the NHC solution is its openness. Their family of nonblocking, protocol-transparent, solid-state switches handles all the physical layer cross-connections. An open API allows third-party vendors to write specific applications to deal with their unique network management problems. Sylvain Abitbol, president and CEO of NHC told CTI � that within the next year, NHC would be able to handle any type of switching for data, voice, or video, over both copper and fiber. He added that NHC’s pricing structure makes it a most appealing solution. The solution runs approximately $100 to $150 per port in a 24-port configuration, as compared to the $300 to $400 per port as offered by the competition.

In Concert Eases Provisioning Of Telephone Lines, Comm Services

Teoss is software that streamlines the work of processing and activating new service orders. It is designed for a wide range of telecommunications providers: established Local Exchange Carriers (LECs), long-distance service providers, Regional Bell Operating Companies (RBOCs), ISPs, cable companies, and wireless providers. Teoss empowers these diverse providers to increase throughput and reduce error in their service delivery processes. By producing more accurate orders, companies gain a competitive advantage that results in greater revenue and improved customer service.

Dara Bloom

Single Number Contact With NameConnector

Greg Galitzine