Vendors and Carriers, Eager for Interconnection with PSTN, Pitch in on Standards Process, But They're Not Waiting
soundingboardmag.com
By Ken Branson
An Internet protocol (IP) carrier and several vendors
have released a specification they hope will become
a standard for interconnection between IP and public
switched telephone networks (PSTNs). But they're
not waiting for the process to run its course.
The specification, called the Internet Protocol Device
Control, or IPDC, was hammered out between
Level3 Communications Inc. (www.level3.com) of
Santa Clara, Calif., and several hardware and
software vendors in a series of meetings which began
in May and ended last week in Salt Lake City, says
Dave Powers, manager of corporate
communications for Level3. The group calls itself the
Technical Advisory Committee, or TAC.
"We're rolling out an IP network, a national IP
network," Powers says. "To roll this out, we need
vendors of software and hardware who will build to
specifications that will allow us to interconnect the IP
networks to the PSTNs."
Powers says his company and its vendors intend to
pursue the standards process and look forward to its
give-and-take, but that they don't intend to wait for it
to run its course.
"This [specification] is market-driven," he says. "And
the standards process tends not to be."
TAC has submitted the specification to the Internet
Engineering Task Force (IETF) and the International
Telecommunications Union (ITU). The executive
director of the IETF, Steve Coya, says TAC is just
at the beginning of a long process that might or might
not lead to the incorporation of IPDC as a standard.
"Just submitting to the IETF ain't a big deal," he says.
Now an IETF official must decide the specification
merits and forward it to a working groups. Then,
after the working group has recommended some
version of the specification for further consideration,
the same official must approve it. Then, the Internet
Engineering Steering Group (IESG) must label the
specification a "standards-track document" before it
can be considered by the IETF.
The vendors in the TAC have committed themselves
to build products to the IPDC within a year,
however, standard or no standard. Among those
vendors are such heavy hitters as Lucent
Technologies Inc. (www.lucent.com) and Northern
Telecom Ltd. (www.nortel.com). But smaller
vendors have taken the plunge, as well. Selsius
Systems Inc. (www.selsius.com) of Dallas is one.
Dave Corley, director of product development at
Selsius, says a lot is riding on this specification for his
company, which makes, among other things, IP
gateways.
"The reason it's important to us is that we are more
of a premises-based solution," Corley says. "We go
sell our solutions in enterprises, or into buildings with
multiple businesses. And in order to take advantage
of large-scale VoIP (voice over IP) networks, we
need to interoperate, not only with other vendors'
large-scale gateways, but with legacy SS7 (signaling
system 7) protocols and the Advanced Intelligent
Network. Our components, in and of themselves,
don't have the level of sophistication that would
allow them to talk directly to SS7, for example.
[IPDC] contains an interface that would allow us to
bridge over to SS7 and intelligent network services
in the PSTN."
Selsius' commitment to build to IPDC means that its
gateway will be usable by Level3's customers. If
IPDC--or something very much like it--becomes a
standard, then "we'll be able to sell into other
environments as well," Corley says.
What happens if what emerges from the IETF and
the ITU is very different from IPDC?
"Well," Corley says, "we'll have to accommodate
that. But fortunately, the strength of our company
and our core competence is software call processing
and telephony interfaces. We've developed our own
H.323 protocol stack, for instance. We also have
our own TAPI (telecommunications application
based programming interface)-based service
provider interface. We have the software expertise
that would allow us to fairly rapidly move toward
any standards modifications the standards bodies
might move towards."
As for Level3, Powers says he's confident that the
standards process will come out well for IPDC.
"I think we feel comfortable with the specification as
it was developed," he says. "The engineers who
developed it are active in the IETF and the ITU. We
simply need the products to build our network. We
see this as an open dialogue, and we mean that
sincerely."
Other companies participating in the TAC's IPDC
specification are 3Com Corp. (www.3com.com),
Alcatel Alsthom (www.alcatel.com), Cisco Systems
Inc. (www.cisco.com), Ericsson Inc.
(www.ericsson.com), Stratus Computer Inc.
(www.stratus.com), Tekelec (www.tekelec.com)
and Vertical Networks Inc. (www.vertical.com)
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