GG: Why did you decide to develop your broadband access framework around SIP?
MS: Pannaway’s (news - alert) Service Convergence Network (SCN) represents both a product solution and a vision for the evolution of broadband service delivery. This vision is based on several core principals that work in tandem to form an IP, Ethernet, and SIP-based network that can support multiple services and applications. The three principals are:
Deliver a fully integrated and remotely managed product line.
As the number of new communications and entertainment services emerge, the importance of a tightly integrated solution becomes essential. These services, many of which will be delivered in real time, will depend on a consistent end-to-end quality of service scheme, which we’ve developed within our SCN framework. Also, by integrating multiple Ethernet and SIPbased network elements within a single system, deployment, configuration, provisioning, and ongoing serviceability can be simplified and streamlined.
Deliver a Primary Line VoIP solution that will allow VoIP to be used to deliver a regulatory friendly telephone service.
While VoIP is a hot topic today, boasting over 25 million lines according to reports, four years ago, when we began development of our SCN solution, it was quite a different picture. VoIP solutions weren’t being used in primary line scenarios; instead, they were marketed as low-cost consumer products or as enterprise PBX replacements. Our goal, with SCN, was to provide telcos with a solution that could leverage all of the operational and feature benefits of VoIP without sacrificing the reliability and safety aspects that have made the PSTN successful for 100 years.
Our SCN provides guaranteed automatic failover in the event of a power outage to a remotely powered back up VoIPenabled digital loop carrier. This failover mechanism ensures that Lifeline calling and E 911 services are always available without the need for battery backup or multiple phone numbers to the home. SIP was a key enabler that allowed us to accomplish this task.
Deliver a durable product set that would evolve over time, allowing telcos to introduce new, revenue generating technologies in a nondisruptive manner.
The old adage is that the only constant is change, but how do you account for change in a complex network environment? Our technology is extremely modular in design and, due to our use of IP, Ethernet, and SIP, software upgrades can be automated. While many traditional DSLAM designs are chassisbased and leverage ATM or TDM, Pannaway chose to develop a series of self-contained units, which enable various technology choices, including VoIP-enabled POTS only, ADSL2+, full-blown triple play, FTTH, and more. These standalone units share common connectivity in the form of Gigabit Ethernet (up to 10Gbps) allowing them to be interconnected in a myriad of ways. Best of all, they can all be remotely managed and provisioned via a single management platform. Additionally, this modularity and innovative use of SIP technology allows for a limitless number of network design options.
GG: Why did Pannaway decide to include SIP in its SCN and how does it benefit telcos?
MS: During the initial design phase of our SCN architecture, it was critical that our solution be extremely flexible and scalable, not just on paper, but in practice. In that context, we examined the VoIP options that were in play and it became clear to us that SIP was the up and coming protocol of choice, primarily based on its flexibility and use of intelligent endpoints. As we began to build our VoIP product line, we believed that SIP was going to be very important to the marketplace, but we also understood that it would place an entirely different set of requirements on our products. Access products from other manufacturers, at the time, were designed to support MGCP or other legacy protocols and simply didn’t possess the horsepower to handle the requirements of SIP. We recognized this short coming and designed our switching and routing access products to be SIPcompatible from the very beginning.
The importance of SIP is continually increasing in the telco marketplace. SIP is much more than a VoIP protocol; it is a multimedia session management framework and, while the early telco deployments have focused on the delivery of traditional telephony services, its potential is far greater. Our telco customers are already using SIP to deliver truly converged triple play services with advanced features, such as caller ID TV screen pops and time-of-day call forwarding. Moving forward, SIP will be used to enable services like video conferencing, inexpensive voice conferencing systems, gaming, IMS, and much more. The true appeal of SIP is that it is the only protocol in the VoIP space with the potential to enable services beyond POTS emulation.
GG: Is SIP deployment becoming more prevalent across the industry?
MS: While very few access equipment providers are shipping SIP-enabled products today, most have announced their intentions to provide SIP support in future revisions or releases. Most of the softswitch vendors have already released SIP support on their platforms and the majority of today’s CPE devices with POTS interfaces already support SIP. The reason that the access equipment vendors are lagging is that, for many years, the manufacturers of DSLAMs considered POTS support to be either something outside of the DSLAM or backward compatible with existing TDM networks. Simply stated, we believe that many access providers misjudged the importance that SIP would play in the delivery of broadband services along with the rapidity with which the SIP wave would hit the telco marketplace.
GG: Does SIP improve VoIP delivery?
MS: Absolutely. SIP-enabled VoIP networks deliver advantages that other systems simply aren’t capable of. SIP is fundamentally an enabling technology with an architecture that readily accommodates new features and services in a highly extensible manner. Core facilities, like presence and events, differentiate SIP from other VoIP technologies. These distinctions enable support of VoIP integration with video conferencing, instant messaging, find me/followme across different access technologies, etc. SIP also provides a means to introduce higher fidelity audio capabilities and, of course, is very Internet friendly.
GG: Are there advantages to SIP outside of a VoIP environment that our readers may not be aware of?
MS: One unique advantage that SIP enables us to deliver is the ability to extend signal distance and to eliminate video corruption commonly caused by Ring Trip in a converged ADSL voice, data, and IPTV environment.
When ADSL and analog voice run simultaneously over the same line, the ringer voltage will often times cause unacceptable video interference. This phenomenon is called Ring Trip. The most common method, due to technological shortcomings and limited use of SIP, for lessening the effects of Ring Trip and correcting video errors is to reduce the ADSL train rate. That, in turn, shortens a telco’s rate/reach capability and reduces the quality and level of billable services that can be offered.
Pannaway’s SCN supports Primary Line VoIP enabling voice to be sourced at both the customer premise and at the remote terminal (RT) or central office (CO). In this model, the signal between the RT/CO and the customer premise is converted to all-digital IP Ethernet, eliminating the need for analog voice to run concurrently with ADSL video and data. This innovative technology, which uses SIP as its underlying engine removes the need for telcos to unnecessarily decrease train rates and shorten loop lengths.
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