Pat,you can read more about SS7(ASND-SRA) by typing SS7 in fast search on NN home page:
If We Build It, They Will Come
MainStreetXpress 36190 in a Field of its Own
The Internet, along with ATM, took center field at ComNet '97, making itdifficult to imagine that life
existed before the advent of this globalnetwork.
Said one observer, whose own booth boasted the largest Internet networkin the United States: "If
they're not selling Internet services, they'reusing the Internet to sell their services."
ATM shared the limelight and proved a big attraction with attendees whorecognized that it could speed
up their Internet connection and thusbring long-anticipated multimedia services from around the world
totheir home computers. That made the launch of the MainStreetXpress 36190 Core Services Switch
something of an anomalyfor this crowd. Few could confirm just how many bits are in a Terabit,let alone
imagine the 1 Terabit and beyond scaling performance of theMainStreetXpress 36190.
The world's most powerful switch won Best of Show in its category,laying low the competition
delivered by Nortel and IBM. Faster andstronger, the MainStreetXpress 36190 caught the eye of some
of theindustry's keenest scouts. It is the prodigy of two companies that haveled their respective
industries -- voice and data -- and, as a result,has the blended strengths of both parents.
What They Said
"I'm very impressed with the
product," said James Stone,
ManagingDirector of Preferred
Technology, Inc. of San Francisco.
"I have abackground that includes
the voice side and the data side, and
I keepwondering when the two
sides are going to talk to each other.
And itlooks to me like a real
breakthrough product in terms of
integrating thevoice and the data and
making it happen."
"To produce this large a product in
this short a timeframe shows thatthe
two groups are really working well
together," added Stone.
"Embedding SS7 in an ATM backbone is very interesting," said MichaelKhalilian, Director of
Applications Development Technology atTime-Warner Communications. "It's the best of both worlds."
"I came here to get educated about how Siemens and Newbridge are mergingthese two technologies,"
added Khalilian, who was attending theSiemens/Newbridge Customer Breakfast. "Siemens understands
carriertelephone requirements and Newbridge understands data. How they mergethe two -- how we get
those killer applications from ATM being integratedin the Central Office -- this is interesting for
providing value-addedservices."
"There are strong ATM backbone switches from other companies," Khalilianexplained, "but SS7 is
really what is attracting us."
SS7 on ATM Core Switch Delivers Competitive Advantage
"When ATM was first proposed," explained Pierre-Yves Sibille, Director,Advanced Broadband
Planning at Siemens Stromberg-Carlson, "it wasproposed by PSTN (Public Switched Telephone
Network, or, major carriers)people as a successor to TDM technology. ATM was thought to be
thenext-generation technology, precipitated by experimentation with voicepacketization."
They wanted to move away from the enforced Nx64 rigidity of the TDMnetworks and ATM evolved as
the surefire technology to deliver theextensive array of new services: video, imaging, and data. Voice
wasstill part of the ATM picture, but the intricacies of SS7 signalingneeded to also be molded to fit with
the intricacies of the ATM Forum'sPNNI signaling. The MainStreetXpress 36190 delivers the two on
the sameplatform.
"The 36190 is the critical link in this concept," he added. "The voiceconcepts are actually very old, very
established and proven. However,the ability to bridge the legacy voice network to ATM lies in
SS7signaling."
Data Plays Catch-Up To Voice
Voice specialists have devoted years to the refinement of networksignaling. For example, based on
Advanced Intelligence in the Network(AIN), a superior selection of advanced services is available
(800numbers, calling cards, virtual private networks, automated attendants),call routing is lightning fast
due to sophisticated databases, and dialtones are natural and expected by end users. Providers need a
reliablenetwork such as AIN to deliver these services, but they need SS7 toaccess AIN.
The data world is following a similar evolutionary path to the one voicehas already traveled, and those in
the data world (or, most often, inboth worlds) want to eliminate many of the problems the voice world
hasalready conquered. For example, in the data world, if a file has nottransferred, the sender doesn't
know until it's returned. In the voiceworld, the lack of a dial tone or congestion tones on the phone
lineindicates immediately that there is a problem with the network.
The bottleneck issues with the Internet are well-known. That's becausethe computers need to map out
points along the way to get to the endpoint, which takes a painfully long time in comparison to the
voiceworld. We wait less than three seconds for a connection in the voiceworld. In the data world, users
can wait minutes for a response whenthey download Internet pages or send electronic mail.
"ATM is an ideal environment for distributing 'intelligence'. In such anenvironment," said Sibille,
"intelligence (features and services, forexample) is not tied anymore to the switch, but can be
positionedanywhere in the network, depending on where it is most appropriate."
What is most interesting about SS7 on an ATM core switch is that the twotechnologies complement and
enhance each other. While SS7 addresses thesignaling issues, ATM addresses the bandwidth issues.
"Our original goal is to provide all means of communication -- voice,video, data -- to everybody via a
single pipe, and all on-demand,"Sibille explained. "The pipe is fiber, the technology is ATM, and
theon-demand switched virtual circuits utilize the proven voice networksignaling system -- SS7. This is
how we can deliver our goal."
This page was last updated on Monday, May 12, 1997.
c 1995, 1996, 1997 Newbridge Networks Corporation.
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