Posted: 07/15/1999
Lucent Opens 'Soft Switch' Applications Interfaces
Program Draws AT&T, WinStar, Sun, Novell, Organic
By Peter Lambert
| "The ability to combine content and communications is key to
making a new generation of broadband applications." --Nathan Kantor, president and chief operating officer, WinStar Communications Inc. |
In the emerging battle to win application developer support for next-generation, programmable communications switches and messaging platforms, Lucent Technologies Inc. at SUPERCOMM '99 launched the "Lucent Full Circle" applications development program designed to aid developers in creating applications for four Lucent programmable platforms.
Murray Hill, N.J.-based Lucent's Full Circle program provides applications development interfaces and support services for:
* PacketStar IP Services Platform, a computer server-based "soft switch" designed to deliver standard public switched telephone network (PSTN) features and other services to Internet protocol (IP) networks;
* 7R/E Programmable Feature Server designed to bridge IP applications and circuit-based telephony switches;
* Flexent and global system for mobile communication (GSM) wireless network application servers; and
* ToolBox Pro, an application development environment for Lucent's AnyPath Messaging Platform.
Full Circle is designed "to accelerate broadband content development," says Carly Fiorina, group vice president for Lucent's global service provider unit. The program also includes marketing and training for network service providers, service creation and maintenance support for application service providers (ASPs), and hardware and software tools for independent software providers developing applications for broadband networks.
"AT&T is pleased to be working with Lucent's Full Circle initiative to enable next-generation, broadband hosted services [and] entirely new types of services for our residential and business users," AT&T vice president of next-generation IP services Sandy Brown says.
Other charter participants in the program include wireless carrier WinStar Communications Inc., New York, directory services software provider Novell Inc., Provo, Utah, and server hardware and software provider Sun Microsystems Inc., Palo Alto, Calif.
"The ability to combine content and communications is key to making a new generation of broadband applications," WinStar president and chief operating officer Nathan Kantor says. To accelerate new applications development, he added, WinStar plans to work not only with Lucent, but also with ASPs and independent developers participating in Full Circle.
At SUPERCOMM, Lucent demonstrated one new application called "MyNetWorks," co-developed with New York City-based ASP Organic Inc. on Lucent's SoftSwitch. MyNetWorks allows users of Lucent AnyPath unified messaging platforms to filter and prioritize voice, electronic mail and fax messages via either a personalized World Wide Web page or a voice interface. Employing Common Object Request Broker Architecture (CORBA) software and Sun's distributed Java applications software, MyNetWorks uses a database of a user's contacts, schedules and programmable rules to "intuitively" filter and prioritize messages.
"This is one of the first applications to truly take advantage of Internet telephony and capitalize on the greater capacity and quality of service (QoS) now entering the network," Fiorina says.
Additionally, Lucent reached both a technology integration and unspecified equity investment in The Fantastic Corp., Zug, Switzerland, to provide participants with end-to-end design, management, broadcast and monitoring of broadband multimedia applications.
Lucent will resell Fantastic's software, including the CECPro (Channel Editorial Center), CMC (Channel Management Center) and MediaSurfer client software for broadband multimedia. The system is designed to support point-to-multipoint distribution of personal assistant, electronic commerce, broadcast and other applications across cable, digital subscriber line (DSL) and IP-based networks.
Service providers, including several competitive local exchange carriers (CLECs), also testified their support for the program. "We anticipate a broad portfolio of new, network-hosted broadband services delivered through Lucent's Full Circle initiative, and we look forward to evaluating and deploying these next-generation services for our DSL network customers," says Brian Gast, president and CEO of JATO Communications Corp., a Denver-based CLEC.
