The communications industry is, by and large, in agreement that the future lies in the application layer, and the daily race is on between service providers to be the first to market with the latest and greatest applications in order to entice subscribers to switch to their services, while retaining existing subscribers. In addition to being first to market with innovative new applications, however, providers also need to ensure delivery capabilities, which means the new revenue generating applications need to run effectively on their networks, otherwise, speed to market will mean little.

 

That seems easy enough, given the expertise providers and application developers have — and it was, until carriers began upgrading their networks to leverage the latest IMS and NGN technologies in order to roll out more advanced capabilities

 

Complicating the situation is the fact that network operators are also in the process of upgrading their networks to leverage IMS and NGN technologies. They have seen a glimpse of the future — the next generation network — and have embraced this ideal of a new network that offers faster, more efficient delivery of increasingly more complex applications.

 

So for some time, AppTrigger has sought to offer a solution to the problem of ensuring existing revenue generating applications can perform in NGN and IMS network environments — making the old work with the new. AppTrigger’s Application Session Controller was developed to ensure this kind of interworking between old applications and new networks, allowing businesses to save money by leveraging their existing applications as they build out their new networks.

 

The challenge, then, is when to cross the divide separating old and new, legacy and IMS/NGN? Service providers have invested significantly in their legacy applications, and the majority of their subscribers are on their legacy networks, making a complete forklift transition a near impossibility, particularly in today’s economy — despite that having been the roadmap for many carriers as they absorbed the hype around IMS/NGN. 

 

Certainly, they cannot operate parallel networks — little explanation is needed for the inefficiency of such an undertaking. Yet, the fact remains, that while new networks are built out, those existing subscribers, while still on legacy networks, are a substantial source of potential income for the new next-generation applications in which network operators are investing.

 

This, having already successfully launched a solution to leverage existing applications in an NGN environment, AppTrigger, at the behest of many Tier 1 service providers, set out in search of a way to bring the NGN vision closer to reality without necessitating a choice between old and new. The end result is its ASC (News - Alert) ServiceExtender solution set, which enables providers to not only leverage their old applications in their new networks, but also their new NGN application investments over their legacy networks. In other words, having already developed a solution for bring the old into the new, AppTrigger has added functionality that brings new into the old.

 

What the ServiceExtender solution effectively addresses is the growing need for investment protection. Providers have an inherent need to enhance their services and networks, but the can ill afford to do so at the expense of existing subscribers and technology. Now, they can develop or buy new, NGN-based applications, and, with the AppTrigger ServiceExtender solution, ensure their backwards compatibility with their legacy networks.

 

“People now are more concerned with the journey getting to NGN, rather than the actual destination of the NGN — that’s become more and more paramount,” explained Patrick Fitzgerald (News - Alert), senior vice president of Global Sales and Marketing at AppTrigger. “At the same time, we’re seeing a very keen interest in how providers can invest in new applications or services and ensure they can reach all of their different subscribers.”

 

The ServiceExtender solution enables just that. It allows providers to implement their NGNs in phases, as appropriate, yet let’s then benefit from those new applications, designed for the NGN across their entire subscriber bases. Of course, it also allows them to still take their legacy applications and offer them to their NGN users.

 

“We’re taking advantage of the market coming together more than it ever has in the past, and are enable service providers to connect existing revenue producing applications to new networks, while also offering investment protection for the dollars they spend on new applications, connecting those into their legacy networks,” added Fitzgerald.

 

What AppTrigger has now launched is the latest example of a growing trend in the communications and networking space focusing on optimization and maximization of assets. ServiceExtender allows service providers, in fact, to do what nearly every business is now preaching: finding a way to do more with less.