[June 26, 2001]

International Softswitch Consortium Launches Member-Funded Interoperability Test Lab

The International Softswitch Consortium (ISC) announced the opening of the ISC Test Lab in Santa Rosa, Calif. In a multi-year agreement with Advanced TelCom Group (ATG), the Lab was created so that any of the over 180 ISC member companies, the leading players in the softswitch industry, can have an open forum for testing the interoperability of their equipment in an impartial setting that is free of corporate ownership. As a result, the softswitch industry will now have the flexibility of testing various combinations of vendors' products and standards so that both vendors and carriers can be assured that interoperability of different offerings can be achieved.

According to Ike Elliott, president of the ISC, "The goal of our industry is to use softswitch technologies to bring cost-effective, multimedia services to market. The ISC Test Lab allows the opportunity for all members, whether they are partners or competitors, to work together with the sole purpose of testing and demonstrating that their technologies work together properly. Our goal is to speed up the deployment of networks that allow enhanced multimedia services, including Voice over IP, to be provided to our customers."

The ISC Test Lab will be located at ATG's Network Architecture and Interoperability Lab (NAIL) in Santa Rosa. ATG will manage the ISC Test Lab and host the ISC's planned test events. "ATG created the NAIL to provide telecommunications manufacturers and service providers with a neutral environment to test interoperability between legacy and next generation systems," said Doug Moeller, ATG's vice president of advanced technology who manages the NAIL. The NAIL, an independent division of ATG, does not manufacture or sell products in the softswitch industry.

The ISC has developed test scripts that can be used in testing to support the organization's interoperability objectives and the needs of its members. Test events will be open to all ISC members who are expected to work closely together to ensure interworking results; thus the ISC will neither release test results nor endorse any one vendor's products.

"As softswitch technology has evolved over the last few years, several companies have stepped up their dedication to interoperability testing. An open forum like the one provided by the ISC is the next logical step," said John Kuzma, senior analyst for RHK. "By involving all of the top players in the softswitch industry, the ISC creates a testing environment that no one company could reasonably duplicate."

The Test Lab will enable interoperability testing of softswitches, media gateways, controllers, media servers, parsers, test boxes, OSS's, network management systems, and others. In addition, the Lab will be used to test within a wide variety of relevant standards including MGCP, MegaCo/H.248, SIP, H.323, MPLS, SS7, SIGTRAN and ATM. 

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