July/August 2001

BY LAURA GUEVIN

The first display of camaraderie and interoperability I observed at the show was at the dynamicsoft booth. The company had introduced their Route Engine 1.0 at the show, a carrier-class solution for routing large volumes of calls at the core of a session initiation protocol (SIP)-based network. The Route Engine offers scalability and flexibility for inter-exchange carriers' softswitch-based networks. It also enables transport carriers to create specific routing rules, offering differentiated capabilities for voice portal customers. Rules can be provisioned and changed on the fly, enabling various service levels for different types of customers, and least-cost routing schemes.

Level 3 Communications is the first announced customer for the Route Engine, and Joan Spindel, dynamicsoft's vice president of marketing, said that deployment on the carrier side sends a strong message about the importance of revenue-producing enhanced services, as well as acceptance among the service provider community of the SIP protocol for VoIP call routing. And to demonstrate just how easy it is get a service to market, dynamicsoft has partnered with Tellme, and they demonstrated their Voice Dialing service in dynamicsoft's booth. The service allows service providers to offer their customers hands-free dialing and phonebook access by speaking names and numbers.

dynamicsoft enables Tellme's Voice Dialing through a programmable service control point (SCP), which is enabled by an XML-based routing language for the expression of powerful routing rules. The beauty of the Tellme solution is its flexibility -- it can be deployed in a carrier's data center, or in one of Tellme's own data centers. And TDM or VoIP network transports may be used to bridge the carrier's switch infrastructure with Tellme's platform, which supports SIP and RTP-based VoIP.

VoIP firewall solutions provider Aravox Technologies adds another component to the solution, and is a dynamicsoft and Level 3 partner. The company offers the Aravox 5000, a carrier-class IP services platform which includes a gigabit Ethernet connection, enabling secure VoIP services on converged networks. The product offers access, address, path, and usage control, and works with the SIP proxy or an H.323 gatekeeper as the call control manager to dynamically open media ports to enable VoIP calls. Level 3 is using the solution, and is actually building their own firewall control proxy for SIP and H.323 transmissions, according to Craig Warren, Aravox co-founder and vice president of marketing. dynamicsoft's SIP Firewall Control Proxy can also control Aravox's firewalls, enabling solutions from companies like HearMe and Pingtel.

CONVERGENT SOLUTIONS
There were numerous other displays of service delivery at SUPERCOMM, including an announcement that Convergent Networks is trialing its Class 5 switch replacement solution, which includes a softswitch, with plans to add support for IP networks including SIP and H.323 interoperability. Integrated communications provider Broadview Networks is beta testing the product for handling TDM, ATM, and VoDSL calls.

And the mighty Microsoft was touting the benefits of its .NET strategy, announcing partnerships with third-party application providers like alexis, developer of unified communications and conferencing solutions. Microsoft is analyzing the impact of enhanced services on profit margins, and is studying platform and services interaction, said Charley Pitcher, solution unit manager for Web services and application hosting for Microsoft. alexis currently uses the Microsoft Exchange and Outlook platforms.

I look forward to seeing more real-world deployments of enhanced services, as well as the industry partnerships and interoperability tests that go along with them. Cooperation and determination seem to be the key factors for making delivery of enhanced services pervasive over next-gen networks.

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