Any doubts that cable operators might have about the salability of technology supporting IP-voice services are likely to dissipate soon, although not without being supplanted by another, perhaps more worrisome concern.
The answer to operators' problem: the rollout of high-capacity, "carrier-class" equipment by a wide range of vendors, including some that are new to the IP-voice arena That will answer the question of salability of the gateway servers used in interfacing Internet-protocol telecommunications with the circuit-switched domain.
The bad news? Incumbent telcos and CLECs (competitive local-exchange carriers) represent a driving force behind vendors' plans to introduce big gateways, ensuring that cable operators will have major competition in the IP-telecommunications arena
"We're seeing implementations of gateway servers with capacity into the high 90s to 125 [DS-O] - this year, and going well beyond that level in the future," said Michael Cassin, product manager for IP-voice services at Concentric Network Carp., a Cupertino, Calif.-based Internet-service provider that is part of the global InterLine consortium of IP-voice providers.
Cassin added, "We're seeing servers that are starting to be enabled with the back-end-system APIs [application program interfaces] that are required for carriers to implement this stuff in networks."
While a handful of incumbent carriers have voiced a moderate level of interest in IP-telecommunications services, the activity below the surface signals that a much more aggressive commitment is taking shape throughout the sector.
For example, AT&T Corp. - the WorldNet data-services unit of which has announced plans to test-market IP-voice services in three cities starting this summer - is planning a much broader rollout, even before the tests begin.
"We need carrier-class solutions, and they're not easy to find," said an AT&T source on the carrier side of the business who asked not to be named
As this executive's shopping list suggests, a company the size of AT&T getting into IP telephony spells not only an emerging need for large-scale gateway servers, but for mass-scale implementations of administrative and signaling features that integrate well into the IP-server domain.
Amid ongoing battles with IP-voice providers over the ground rules for service pricing, the incumbent carriers' fear of being underpriced is rapidly being superseded by a more immediate concern; the fear of losing a big piece of high-end business as a result of the merging of IP voice with VPN (virtual-private-network) data-software functionality.
The ability to feed local-office-circuit voice traffic from the PBX (private-branch exchange) into the IP VPN allows commercial customers to bypass the costs of traditional private-line voice networks, while enhancing the overall feature capabilities of their communications systems, said Glenn Ben-Yosef, president of Clear Thinking Research, a Boston based consulting concern.
"Standards-based voice-over-IP is the enabler that allows existing WAN wide-area-network] links to work double-duty," Ben-Yosef said. "Companies can realize significant cost savings by carrying voice/fax traffic over existing data networks."
Response to the emerging demand for carrier-class gateways has been widespread among traditional carrier vendors.
For example, Lucent Technologies, which is already in the market with its own IP-telephony-gateway system, is moving on several other fronts to support the mounting carrier demand. Lucent is even going so far as to bring out a 128-gigabit-per-second IP switch in the third quarter, with an evolutionary track to terabit rates built into the design of its back plane.
The supplier's new gateway system incorporates a variety of large-carrier-specific features with the basic H. 323 voice-gateway functions. including the option to translate circuit signals to either IP or ATM (asynchronous transfer mode), a signaling gateway that allows SS7 (signaling system 7) to be used in managing IP traffic and a feature server supporting direct input of advanced-network services into the IP domain.
Right now, bringing these capabilities into the mix, versus driving die gateway server itself to very high capacity, is the most important thing that the market needs, said Jun Simester, the company's product manager for Internet-telephony solutions.
"Our system supports up to 30 DS-0s [64-kilobit-per-second voice circuits] per gateway and, on top of that, we support 500 PC [personal computed interconnections per gatekeeper zone," Simester said, in reference to the duster of gateway servers that can be served by Lucent's point of centralized-routing address management in the H.323 architecture.
This translates to some 750 circuit gateways per gatekeeper server, which covers 25 gateways, plus the 500 PC connections, Simester noted.
Carrier interest in IP telephony is stirring development activity on the part of traditional gate way suppliers, as well.
"We're seeing long-distance and local telephone companies starting to shift gears and move faster with plans for deployment of IP-telephony services," said Lior Haramaty, vice president of technical marketing at VocalTec Communications Ltd., the pioneer in Internet telephony.
"The next-generation telephone companies are taking advantage of the latest technology advances at a pace that is causing traditional telcos to realize that they don't have much time if they're going to do something to check these newcomers," Haramaty said. Earlier this year, VocalTec and ECI Telecom Ltd. - Israeli based vendors serving IP-voice and telecommunications markets, respectively - said they were teaming up to deliver an Internet to-PSTN (public service telephone network) gateway system capable of serving hundreds of lines per platform, enabling operators to build networks that serve millions of users.
"These new systems must be centrally managed, have very high reliability be scalable to millions of lines, include security and be open and standards-based," said Doron Ziner, president of VocalTec. 'That's our goal and shared vision of the new public network."
Another leader in IP-gateway technology, Vienna Systems Corp. of Kanata, Ontario, plans to introduce a 120-port gateway this month, said Kerry Hawkins, vice president of sales at Vienna.
"We're in the process of building a 1,000-port gateway," he said, noting that Vienna has an unnamed customer that wants two such units this summer.
Probably the first implementation of next-generation IP-telephony gear designed for efficient interfacing with legacy networks involves Delta Three Inc., one of the pioneer ITSPs (Internet-telephony-service providers), which is now a subsidiary of international carrier RSL Communications Ltd.
Delta - which worked with Ericsson Inc. to develop that company's IP-telephony solution for carriers, known as IPTC-is now operating the system in support of international calls between Israel, the U.K. and the United States, with plans to add the system to all 19 of the ITSP's POPs (points of presence) in the near future.
"We have an international IP network that allows us to control latency and other QOS [quality of-service] parameters," said Noam Bardin, vice president of technology and operations at Jerusalem-based Delta Three.
This means that with the implementation of carrier-class gateways, Delta -working with RSL where Delta doesn't have its IP-network facilities in place - will be able to support "everything from electronic commerce, to videoconferencing, to services making use of video and audio streaming," he added.
While ITSPs like Delta Three remain the drivers behind Ericsson's play in IP telephony, incumbent carriers are definitely becoming a force, said Barbara Boyle, global marketing manager for Ericsson.
Along with New Zealand Telecom - which, at press time, was set to become the first incumbent to announce use of Ericsson's IPTC - the vendor sees strong activity from incumbents in Norway, Finland, Switzerland, Italy, Brazil, China and "some pockets of the United States," Boyle said.
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