April 1999

• IP Trunking Moves Onto Traditional Switches
• Listening For Servicetone

IP Trunking Moves Onto Traditional Switches

If you can speak of tradition as existing already in the fresh young world of Internet telephony, it would be safe to say that, traditionally, IP telephony has been the playground of new companies with new ideas about how voice traffic should travel on the network. Voice is seen as only so much data, and it is treated accordingly, although with perhaps a bit of prioritization to ensure that conversations are guaranteed a certain sound and service quality. However, when you compare the amount of voice being carried over the PSTN to the amount of voice being handled via packet-switched networks, the bulk of the traffic is clearly still handled by the big iron.

Recent announcements have pointed to some change in this pattern, however. IP telephony is quickly moving from the realm of a cheap replacement for long distance to a viable telecommunications model worthy of consideration by all manner of companies. One symptom of this changing perception of Internet telephony in the switching world is the series of announcements from big switch vendors who are interested in porting their current switches over to allow for IP trunking. NEC (www.nec.com), Lucent (www.lucent.com), and Nortel Networks (www.nortelnetworks.com) have all made announcements in the past couple of months regarding introducing IP capabilities to their traditional circuit-switched PBXs. There are many similarities between these announcements, and taken as a group, they represent the significant movement of the traditional PBX vendors into the IP-PBX space.

The first entry comes from NEC, who has announced a strategy that allows current users of their NEAX platform to migrate from circuit-switched to packet-based voice communications. NEC's vision involves IP-enabling their switches on both the trunk and telephone sides. On the trunk side, this is accomplished by the addition of an IP trunk card that allows for PBX-to-PBX trunking over a network and that supports H.323 standards. This trunk card is available as a plug-in module for the NEAX2000, 2400, and Express IP switches. On the phone side, the plug-in module takes the form of an IP line card which again supports H.323 and also supports IP phones on the LAN and across the WAN.

Lucent has also announced an entry in this space, which builds on their well-established DEFINITY switching platform. Named DEFINITY IP Solutions, these newly IP-enabled switches allow current Lucent customers to enhance the functionality of their investment without sacrificing reliability or quality, and without an expensive "forklift" upgrade to their facility. The upgrade involves installation of a trunk card, as well as the use of the DEFINITY IP Solutions software, which acts as both a gateway and a gatekeeper in the H.323-compliant IP network. The software supports Distributed Communications Systems (DCS) and Q-Signaling (QSIG) protocols, as well as standard APIs, including TAPI, TSAPI, and JTAPI.

Nortel Networks has made enhancements to the Meridian 1 communication system generally available, allowing the Meridian 1 to handle IP telephony. Nortel Networks' offering here is the Meridian Integrated IP Telephony Gateway (ITG), an Intelligent Peripheral Equipment (IPE) solution that supports up to eight trunks per port card. Gaining IP functions in the network involves adding this port card to your system. Additionally, Nortel Networks announced the availability of its Meridian IP Telecommuter, a Windows 95/98-based software package that allows users of a multimedia computer to make calls through their computer's USB port and using either a Nortel USB phone or the IP Telecommuter's softphone. Meridian Telecommuter allows enhanced remote access to the office's communication facilities. Users have full access to all the features of the Meridian 1 system, including caller ID and CallPilot unified messaging, as if they were sitting at their desks in the office.

Again, the movement of these larger switching companies into the IP telephony space is a significant step. Internet telephony, while still a fledgling industry, is attracting attention from the full range of switch vendors due to the enhanced features and flexibility it offers to users of all kinds - enterprise, small and medium businesses, home offices, and telecommuters.

Chris Donner, CTI� magazine

Listening For Servicetone

Building on the idea of humble, reliable dialtone, and encompassing the more exalted (if more tenuous) webtone, the idea of a more flexible and dynamic service environment is gaining currency. Indeed, with all the excitement surrounding this new idea, we might be forgiven for anticipating a new buzzword, something we've taken to calling servicetone.

But the scramble for the hearts and minds of network equipment providers (NEPs) and network service providers (NSPs) is more than a war of words. The stakes are sufficiently high - a $110 billion telecom equipment market - that vendors are rolling out new application and service platforms. A case in point is the recent addition to Sun Microsystems' Netra line of servers. With the Netra ft 1800 server, a fault-tolerant system, Sun hopes to win a piece of a market dominated to date by such players as Stratus and Compaq/Tandem.

According to Sun, what sets its offerings apart is that they emerge from a single continuous computing environment, that is, the Solaris operating environment, which runs without alteration on products ranging from chips and boards for custom-built systems to workstations and low-end servers for application development to high-end enterprise and fault-tolerant telecom servers for business- and telecom-critical application deployment.

Basically, Sun's goal is to help NSPs increase revenues and differentiate themselves by delivering value-add services more quickly and less expensively. NSPs, for their part, are well aware that in a more competitive service environment, advantage accrues to those service providers who introduce more sophisticated and user-friendly services, and who do so at a faster pace. NEPs face similar challenges. NEPs hope to avoid devoting resources to developing, building, and supporting proprietary, comprehensive computing solutions. Rather, they are looking to ally themselves with computer platform vendors to provide part of the overall solution.

In the past, stringent telco requirements exceeded the capabilities of the commercial computing sector, and NEPs were forced into building their own systems to meet central office requirements. However, new platforms, such as the Netra ft 1800, are designed with the central office in mind. Sun's Netra ft 1800 server is built on dual four-processor UltraSPARC chip sets and leverages the technology used in the popular Sun Enterprise 450 server. The system provides a 300-MHz CPU and 4 gigabytes of memory, as well as a NEBS-certified rack mount package, enabling telecom carriers to enclose the system in multiple racks from a variety of providers. The new line joins the Netra t 1100, 1120, and 1124 servers to form a family of modular systems for telecommunications applications.

The servers, however, form but a part of the picture. Sun, in combination with the new line of servers, is also introducing a set of services and alliances to help telecom companies implement what it calls a Service Driven Network - a flexible, modular network designed to speed the creation and deployment of new services and to handle provisioning, management, and billing.

In addition to the new servers, which offer greater than "five nines" reliability, Sun has created a new business unit - Network Systems - chartered with developing products and programs for NEPs and NSPs. For example, the unit intends to apply the Netra ft 1800 to meet stringent telecom requirements for Intelligent Network and Advanced Intelligent Network applications such as signal control processing, emergency 911 and directory and authentication services. (In a related announcement, Sun indicated that IBM, Bellcore, and Trillium Digital Systems are lending their support to Sun's Java In Advanced Intelligent Networks (JAIN) initiative, with the goal of developing Java-based open standards for Intelligent Network applications and services.)

Finally, in another effort to ensure the success of the new platform, Sun has also announced alliances with best-of-breed application providers for telecom services like customer care and billing, provisioning, switch control, signal control processing, voice/fax over IP, and virtual private networks. Key allies include ADC Telecommunications, Brite Voice Systems, Cisco Systems, Del Mar Solutions, Inc., DGM&S Telecom, Linkon Corporation, Lucent Technologies, and Open Port Technology.

Perhaps, with active partners and a flexible platform, Sun will succeed in furthering the idea of servicetone, which, in the end, isn't so much about raising customer expectations about services, or about how sophisticated and user-friendly services can become. Rather, it is about being prepared as expectations grow of their own accord. How long will voice mail, as an enhanced service, retain its novelty? How long will merely being online seem an accomplishment? How you answer questions such as these will determine how seriously you take servicetone, and efforts by vendors to hasten its delivery. For more information, visit Sun Microsystems at www.sun.com/netra/.

Kevin Mayer, CTI� magazine