Steve,
I wish I had a little more time on my hands to arm wrestle with the engineers and marketing folks of Cisco/Bay/Luncent. I've got a shoping list I'd like to unload on them. Maybe next week.
In the past couple of days we've seen some of the predictable 'carrier grade' releases that we've discussed in the past, those which would be necessary before some of the incumbent carriers would begin to seriously consider VoIP platforms in 'their own' portfolios of offerings. I think we've now seen at least the beginnings of that ilk, or at least a glimpse of what is yet to come for the big iron players: The big three IXCs, and the ILECs and larger CLECs.
Some interesting things (topics for comparison) emerge out of the new products' capabilities, not the least significant can be seen in this passage:
"They include a switch that will soon be tested by MCI Communications Corp. (MCIC) and a server that will allow a caller to take make lower-cost calls over an Internet-style network without dialing extra numbers....The server could allow an Internet service provider to add phone service fairly simply, said Bill O'Shea, president of data networking systems at Lucent. The service would include amenities such as call-forwarding, 911 access and directory assistance that have not been available from Internet companies, O'Shea said. The server could also appeal to local companies seeking to compete with entrenched carriers."
What is this telling us? For one thing, to differentiate between 30-some odd digits and 11 digits is a HUGE differentiator, given the convenience-seeking tendencies of time-hassled users who increasingly suffer from short attention span deficiency, as their minds are preoccupied with ten steps of thinking ahead of the moment. Besides, they have more profitable ways of spending their time, or so my theory goes.
The fix for circumventing the authentication processes can probably be found in their preliminary gatekeeper implementation combined with calling line ID (CLID) and automatic number Identification (ANI) capabilities, derived from the SS7 model, although I am only surmising this at this time.
What these capabilities might result in, however, is adding 'legitimacy' to calls made in this manner, disqualifying them, conceivably, from "access charge evasion." I'm not sure about this. Maybe someone, perhaps an expert lurker, can clarify this for us.
But that is not the only what-I-consider-major, yet subtle, message I receive from the LU release. A more significant message is that LU is shaping their offering to be "end-office-" strategic, in that it for the first time addresses user access facilitation, emergency-911, and other integrable features or their Class 5, No 5ESS family of switches and associated access technologies, which heretofore have been separate and unbundled in the POTS model, but which now can be viewed as a total solution in the IP model.
Therein lies a huge advantage, the migration kicker that others in this space lack, for LU, since some 40 to 60 % of the LECs across the country have been using Tens (Hundreds?) of Billions of Dollars worth of LU's (still-depreciating) legacy end-office and tandem switching gear for decades, which LU will work towards making upgradable, or trade-up-able, to the new paradigm.
That's an extremely powerful -an almost-insurmountable-to-overcome-by-others- position to be in. Nortel is the only other player who could exploit this position here in the states, but I've not seen the kind of leadership from them that one would expect, it seems.
It may not seem like whirlwind excitement to many of us who consider the daily press releases with new levels of anticipation every day, to upgrade gray iron in order to pass UDP packets. But no one ever said that the central office milieu was glamorous. Only expensive, and a veritable Gold Mine for large equipment vendors who can stay ahead of the technology curve, albeit in a belated manner at times, while at the very least respecting the mores of the past. Let's not forget the influence that lies in the thinking of like-minded legacy that still exists between many in the LECs, and what they perceive to be a vendor that has the interests of their fate in mind, and one which the LECs perceive to have religious tendencies after their own thinking.
Another advantage lies in the folks who have for years felt: if only we wudda, cudda, shoulda... Now they 'can.' I'm referring to the expertise that has been locked up in Bell Labs (sometimes, no... make that many times, in the closets) and other cross-pollenates into the LABs who for years had to work with onerous-like constraints placed upon them due to their monopoly status, and the overly stodgy and complacent style of their then-parent, T. Let's also not forget that these are the folks who 'know' where all of the gremlins are, for it is they who were primarily responsible for 'putting' them there.
Do you think that we can expect to see some more lucrative signing bonuses announced out in San Jose, and Bellerica, soon? Unless, of course, we see a signing of a different kind in the latter, first. And after what we've seen over the recent past, does it really appear as likely now that LU actually needs a Bay or ASND? What do you think?
Regards, Frank Coluccio |
