Posted: 03/1999
An Intelligent (Network) Decision
Packetized Voice Can Solidify CLECs as NextGen Operators
By Jack Kozik
It's natural for people to fear the unknown. This rings true for many of today's traditional voice-service providers who see the Internet as a tremendous threat to the future of their voice services business. The reality is the Internet represents a much-needed medium for offering new revenue-generating services.
A great example of this is the birth and growth of wireless. Have wireless subscribers stopped using their landline phones? On the contrary, with a predominant number of wireless calls terminating on the landline network, wireless phones have generated more wireline traffic than they have taken away. Similarly, voice services will continue to have value as Internet telephony gains momentum in the marketplace. No one expects subscribers to stop using their current means of communications, they'll just have more options.
It's important to remember that new developments that promise to revolutionize the way people communicate will never end. Today, it's the Internet; tomorrow it will be something else. In truth, no one network or technology is expected to reign supreme until the end of time. That's why the continued success of a competitive local exchange carrier (CLEC) rests on its ability to accommodate multiple technologies spanning multiple networks, including wireline, wireless, packet data and some yet to be defined.
To successfully operate within this "network of networks" environment, a CLEC needs to build its infrastructure with maximum flexibility. By using an intelligent network (IN)-based services architecture, a CLEC can successfully bridge across ever-evolving technologies. Just as IN services are facilitating the convergence of wireless and wireline networks, they will do the same for the Internet.
Most incumbent local exchange carriers (ILECs) recognize this and plan to use an IN infrastructure to bridge their subscribers with voice over Internet protocol (VoIP) networks. This takes time, however, because of the size of their networks. Adding IN functionality now could do more than just put CLECs on an even footing with the incumbents. As existing IN-based services evolve to interwork with the Internet, new feature-rich VoIP services can be used to help clearly differentiate a CLEC's business and potentially generate more revenue.
Standing Out in a Crowd
Even though the voice quality and cost of wireless wasn't on par with wireline when it first was introduced, the ability to go anywhere and still communicate helped people forgive the shortcomings of the new technology. In essence, the same will be true with VoIP. While voice quality and price are important, as is evidenced in the wireless industry today, what's really going to make VoIP successful is the new capabilities it can deliver. Subscribers will want to sign up for VoIP service because it gives them a new way to accommodate their communications needs.
For starters, the Internet provides a new and exciting user interface that subscribers can use to conduct their telecommunications activities. Via a web browser, a user connected to the Internet could subscribe to voice services, update his or her profiles, change parameters associated with a service and get billing information--all using a point-and-click personal computer (PC) interface. When compared to the user interface of a 12-button telephone, the web browser offers carriers a powerful new way to meet the needs of their subscribers. Additionally, most people are familiar with web browser technology and would be comfortable using it to control their voice services.
Service options also multiply when the public switched telephone network (PSTN) is combined with the Internet. A whole class of IN-based advanced routing services can be leveraged to create new, potentially profitable applications in the VoIP environment. For example, several vendors offer software that allows local telephone subscribers with a single line to see a "call waiting" message pop up on their computer screen while on the Internet. The message gives the subscriber a variety of choices, such as accepting the call, routing it to voice mail, routing it to an Internet phone or ignoring it.
Single-number service, a variation on today's personal-number services, is another application that could be offered in a VoIP network. It provides customers with one phone number and the ability to dictate which device (wireline phone, wireless handset or computer) receives calls. The web browser provides the easy-to-use interface for manipulating this service. While traditional personal number services represent a valuable niche for service providers today, the web interface gives this service mass-market potential.
An IN services-based infrastructure gives CLECs, who are experiencing tremendous growth in provisioning phone network connections to Internet service provider (ISP) customers, a new way to increase their value to this emerging market as well. By offering a data pipe (such as frame relay or asynchronous transfer mode [ATM]) in addition to the circuit-based facilities, CLECs could offer a modem pool outsourcing service to the ISP (See image, "Internet Offload"). CLECs can offer ISPs virtual hunt groups (single-number reach) spanning an entire region. Based on where a call originates, IN databases would know to which modem pool it should be routed. If one of the modem pools is congested, the IN service logic will facilitate alternate routing to less-congested modem pools. This is much more efficient than the current practice of constantly tweaking and fine-tuning modem pools to match traffic patterns. Application of this new service can result in less work for the ISP, better performance for the subscribers and potentially more revenue for the CLEC.
A Common Look and Feel
For Internet telephony truly to be successful, it must appeal to the mass market. Just as wireless and wireline phone service operate in a similar manner, voice services traveling over an IP network also must. Assigning Internet phones a number--just like their wireline and wireless counterparts--is one of the first steps toward successfully converging VoIP with mainstream telecommunications.
While mapping between a phone number and an IP address is a new IN translation service, it builds on the existing IN infrastructure. This is analogous to how phone numbers are mapped for wireless phones today using the home location register (HLR) function. To the network, a phone number for an Internet phone becomes just another destination to which to route calls. Once a CLEC is able to give a phone number to an Internet phone, all of the services it provides--as well as the kind provided by another CLEC, ILEC, interexchange carrier (IXC) or ISP--will become available as a part of its Internet phone service (see image, "Internet Phone Numbering Service--Converged Services Enabler").
Image: Internet Phone Numbering Service - Converged Services Enabler
As with circuit-switched networks, mandated local services such as number portability also will have to be addressed. A CLEC will need to dictate to which carrier an 800 number gets routed in a VoIP network. Not only are carrier-selection service and number portability both implemented via IN databases and interfaces, other revenue-generating services such as enhanced call forwarding, calling name and messaging also are facilitated through the IN.
Bridge Building
Most telecommunications carriers already are well aware of the value IN-based services add to their wireline and wireless environments. Yet some are discounting the role an IN infrastructure will play in bridging today's circuit-switched networks with tomorrow's VoIP networks. In truth, the continuity that IN-based services have provided traditional voice networks will be imperative to carriers as they set their sights on lucrative new markets such as VoIP.
Just as importantly, network services built on IN functionality will enable carriers to evolve their voice and data service offerings quickly and cost-effectively to meet the changing needs of their subscribers better. Because, while the network is important, attractive and profitable services are the essential ingredient to survival in the fiercely competitive telecom industry. New VoIP services already are available on IN servers to help differentiate carriers and win over new subscribers.
In the beginning, CLECs were forced to play catch-up. Instead of just providing basic, cut-rate voice services, however, CLECs have successfully drawn subscribers away from their competition by exploiting the feature-transparency and service-creation capabilities an IN-based services infrastructure has to offer. Nothing changes as voice and data networks converge, except maybe for one thing: who will be forced to play catch-up.
With the voice network being used more and more as the gateway to the Internet, there is a heightened sense of urgency on the part of all carriers to offer subscribers integrated services that accommodate their multimedia needs. CLECs with nimble operations, state-of-the-art networks and an IN infrastructure may be in the best position of all to take the lead in the local markets.
Jack Kozik is intelligent network architecture evolution planning director for Lucent Technologies Inc., Murray Hill, N.J.
Bridging the IP and IN Worlds
By Mike Twomey
Deregulation of the telecommunications industry has spawned a revolution in the types of services offered, such as prepaid calling, Internet call waiting and unified messaging. When the demand for these new services is combined with the cost savings of operating a single, multimedia network and the opportunities brought about by regulatory rulings, the demand for carrier-grade, open platforms supporting voice over Internet protocol (VoIP) skyrockets. Open, scaleable switch platforms are uniquely positioned to enable service providers to bridge the Internet protocol (IP) and intelligent network (IN) worlds and offer truly differentiated service sets.
While there has been much focus on VoIP as a service, the new breed of integrated communications providers (ICPs) are looking at VoIP as a tool that is part of a new way of operating. Combining voice and data services over a single network enables carriers to dramatically reduce their costs. By using their own dedicated bandwidth and controlling the traffic flow on their own networks, carriers can avoid the delay and packet-loss issues that plague VoIP. Carriers who leverage platforms that support both traditional public switched telephone network (PSTN) interfaces and standards as well as the multiple emerging standards of VoIP can easily roll out services rooted in either world with the ability to transition between the two based on the customer's needs.
Programmable switches are the cost-effective platform for supporting both PSTN and data traffic simultaneously. New standards, such as media gateway control protocol (MGCP), are aimed at moving network intelligence into databases that drive switch/gateway platforms. This concept of a physical gateway communicating over an open application programming interface (API) to a database for instructions is what programmable switches were designed to do more than a decade ago. Hundreds of enhanced service developers have already built applications leveraging this architecture. Programmable switches have long supported out-of-band signaling such as signaling system 7 (SS7) and primary rate integrated services digital network (ISDN-PRI). These switches can handle the demands of high traffic networks with the ability to scale to 30,000 ports and beyond.
However, while the market hype would have us believe that the traditional PSTN and all its associated network and customer premises equipment is going away, it's not. For the foreseeable future, there will be a need for a service provider to communicate in both the PSTN and public switched data network (PSDN) worlds. What is needed is the ability to support these and other technologies on a single platform. For while MGCP may be the best architecture for transporting IP-based voice calls, H.323 is envisioned to be to the long-term link to the client. Transport to the customer and over the backbone will be most cost-effective over IP-based networks. However, customers also require the advanced custom local area signaling services (CLASS) features they have come to expect from their PSTN provider. Carriers need an open platform that will allow them to build the service set their targeted markets require.
Programmable switches are uniquely positioned to be the PSTN/IP gateway. Carriers can take advantage of a platform designed from the ground up as an open, carrier-grade telco switch. Open programmable switching platforms enable service providers to purchase a reliable infrastructure switch that they then can use to support services that normally would require multiple, separate closed systems. By adding VoIP packet technology into its hardware, programmable switches are able to leverage an open API to support H.323, MGCP and PSTN requirements, while simultaneously supporting the IP/PSTN gateway functionality required and caller services such as prepaid calling, unified messaging and Internet call waiting. With an easy-to-use graphical user interface (GUI), carriers themselves quickly can add and change services. Carriers no longer need to wait for a third party to develop a feature--they control their own destiny.
With a truly open and programmable platform, carriers can support today's networks and services, bridge the IP and IN world and easily adopt both new network technologies and revenue-generating services as the demand arises. This architecture can be much more cost-effective since these new services will be added incrementally to an existing open platform, rather than deploying completely separate and often incompatible systems. By supporting end-office and tandem switching with integrated VoIP and remote access server functionality, all on a single highly scaleable switching platform, carriers quicken time to market and can modify service offerings to meet the demands of their customers. Open, scaleable switch platforms are uniquely positioned to enable service providers to bridge the IP and IN worlds and offer truly differentiated service sets.
Mike Twomey is manager of wireline industry marketing at Excel Switching Corp., Hyannis, Mass. He can be reached at (508) 862-3000 or mtwomey@xl.com.
