ASND's new devices could ease 'Net bottlenecks
Smart RAC can free up blocked telephone switches.
By Tim Greene of Network World
[I typed this up from the 2/2/98 print]
Ascend and 3Com are teaching their RACs to talk to telephone voice switches. If successful, the plan could ease Internet bottlenecks and help migrate telephone networks to IP backbones of the future.
Last week, both cos pledged to put telephone signaling technology in to their RACs, allowing the devices to take dial-up Internet calls off the voice telephone network. these long duration calls have been blamed for bogging down expensive telephone switches.
Instead of buying more telephone voice switches, phone cos could buy these smart RACs - at a tenth of the cost , the two companies claimed Relieving the telephone switches could mean fewer failures when ISP customers try to dial in to the Internet.
Later this year, ASND's MAX and 3Com's Total Control dial-up access switch lines will carry SSignaling System 7 (SS7) SW, the protocol stack telephone voice switches are used to signal call setup and release, among other things.
SS7 SW will enable RACs to sit within the phone company network and receive calls from customers dialing in to ISPs. The calls then would be switched to high-speed trunks linking RACs to ISP points of presence.
The RACs could fulfill that role as soon as the SW is complete. But with further intelligence, the RACs could be gateways between the public voice telephone NW as it exists today and the IP backbones that traditional carriers are working toward. Today, phone cos operate separate data and voice NWs, but they are starting the move toward single networks that handle both.[A new market opened up for for ASND]
Putting voice on an IP backbone requires gateways that support the translation of voice-call signaling into IP addresses. In turn, those IP addresses must be associated w/ service-quality levels that support voice.
With this in place, voice traffic could then ride with data over a single carrier backbone, thereby reducing carrier costs. With competition finally heating up, these savings might be passed along to customers.
3Com is expected to roll out SS7 upgrades to its Total COntrol chassis over the course of the year. ASND is expected to roll out voice over IP and SS7 support in the first quarter. |
