Programmable switches need to embrace data -- Vendor choice: Support Internet, IP traffic or exist in a shrinking voice-only niche
By Terry Sweeney
If you believe that the central office will act as the server to numerous client switches during the next few years, then you probably also believe that the future of the client market is sure to be successful.
But that market is no sure thing, at least if you're a builder of adjuncts that hang off the central office, like programmable switches. Why? Their circuit-switched, voice-oriented products are increasingly isolated in a network where packets and Internet traffic dominate.
With the advent of the Web and IP traffic, programmable switching vendors may find their networking niche narrower than ever.
Some companies already are making adjustments. Rockwell's Switching Systems division, Downers Grove, Ill., and Summa Four Inc., Manchester, N.H., both made deals with Internet telephony companies in order to tap the rising tide of TCP/IP traffic and the new revenue associated with it. Others, like Redcom Laboratories Inc., Fairport, N.Y., say that as long as there's an analog voice network, the need will prevail for the specialized, low-cost adjuncts that are Redcom's bread and butter.
Perilous undertaking
But programmable switching vendors that ignore the Net do so at at their own peril.
"We don't know when electronic commerce will take off, but when it does the implications are enormous for the carriers-the largest part of the voice market just went to the packet network," said Robert Rosenberg, president of Insight Research Corp., Livingston, N.J. Call centers, where programmables are widely used, account for about $100 billion annually in service revenues alone.
Mr. Rosenberg said that today's public switched networks will face major bottlenecks if the nation's top catalog retailers, for example, turn to Web pages to replace their telephone sales agents.
Programmable switches are used in a variety of applications. In general, these cheap, compact switching platforms permit a carrier to deploy a specific feature or service quickly, without waiting for a central-office switching vendor to develop that feature or deliver that software for the whole network. Like Intelligent Network peripherals, such as signal transfer points or service points, they offload traffic and processing functions from the central-office switch.
Programmables are most commonly used for IN-type functions such as toll-free calling ("800" and "888" numbers) and premium service calls ("900" numbers). Programmables are used as automatic call distributors or in wireless networks, as well as for interactive voice response, fax store and forward and protocol conversion.
MFS Communications Co. Inc. is using programmable switches to help it deliver virtual private networking services, said Clive Curtis, product manager of data services for the Omaha, Neb.-based carrier's London office. Such platforms would be the underpinnings of what Mr. Curtis calls the "virtual POP," or point of presence, where carriers like MFS can use interconnection and their own IN functionality to distinguish themselves from the entrenched carriers.
"IN switches at their heart are really just call-processing equipment. But with the introduction of circuit-switched ATM technology, and [with the ability] to provide high-speed access and data networking on a circuit-switched basis, there's no reason why you can't apply the logic of IN call-processing to ATM calls," Mr. Curtis noted.
That's likely to be a fairly long courtship, according to Francis McInerney, principal at North River Ventures Inc., a consultancy in Golden Bridge, N.Y. Just as the Internet shifts its routing and transmission paths based on spare capacity, so too must the public switched network, using the intelligence that presumably would be contained in adjuncts like programmables.
Mr. McInerney also said that vendors are resisting the next big step in evolution: delivering DS-3 (45 megabits per second) throughput at DS-0 prices (64 kilobits per second)
"Some of the programmable switching vendors have these front ends, but they are basically for DS-0 traffic, designed to serve the CAP [competitive access provider] market, and give them added value," he said. "But look at things like Web TV-you can't have someone come along with a 200-megahertz bus and not also address the DS-3 piece. The Moore Curve won't be stopped like this. But none of these guys are addressing the DS-3 questions."
Moore's Law, named after Intel Corp. founder Gordon Moore, says that silicon chip power doubles every 18 months while costs fall by half. Although the benefits of this principle have flowed freely to desktop computers, that dynamic has been less evident in the public switched telephone network.
Larry Tiedt, a director of enterprise network design for GTE Corp., Stamford, Conn., said it's important not to get bowled over by Internet hype, despite its potential benefits.
"There's going to be a role for programmable, circuit-switched platforms for services on the analog network for some time to come. Of course, we've done some successful experimentation using the Internet or IP, packet-based technology for deploying networking services," Mr. Tiedt said. "There will be a role for both kinds of switching."
Mike Hluchyj, vice president and chief technology officer for Summa Four, said there's a role for programmable switches as gateways between the PSTN and the Internet. This type of gateway adjunct last year drove Summa Four to invest in WebCentric Communications Inc., Omaha, Neb., a developer of Internet telephony products.
Likewise, Rockwell last fall joined with NetSpeak Corp., Boca Raton, Fla., to create products that allow users to speak directly with call-center agents. The first jointly developed products should be available by the end of March, according to a representative from Rockwell.
Summa Four's Mr. Hluchyj said programmable switch vendors have an advantage, in that the complexity and diversity of the public switched network far outstrips the Internet. Such vendors have years of experience designing gateways that maneuver among different countries' signaling protocols or variances of ISDN.
"The Internet builders have done quite well at keeping things to the IP layer. It's more difficult looking outward to the PSTN than to the Internet. And that's why these gateways will come largely from the Summa Fours of the world," he added.
Hybrid possibilities
In the meantime, Summa Four's investment in Web-Centric could yield some interesting hybrids. Mr. Hluchyj said the VCO switch and WebCentric's server products can be used in tandem, capitalizing on the Internet for telephony signaling, then using the public switched network as the path for high-quality voice transmission. The Web server instructs the switch to dial two outgoing calls, then bridges them together.
"One of the first applications is a reservation list for self-service conferencing. Rather than calling an AT&T conference services number, you point and click at numbers and ring them in sequence," Mr. Hluchyj said.
But this is the sort of neat technical trick GTE's Mr. Tiedt said he's likely to shy away from. "Yeah, there's lots of ways to do these things, but why would you do that? You can demonstrate things like talking over the Internet. But anybody not familiar ... when it comes to services with a combination of voice and data, then some of the Internet solutions start to make more sense. But POTS ... why do it over the Internet?"
Terry Sweeney is the Network Infrastructure department editor at CommunicationsWeek. E-mail your reactions to this article to telepath@cmp.com.
Copyright (c) 1997 CMP Media Inc. |
