Nortel Networks Announces MultiService Connect, the First Complete Voice/Data Access Solution for Carriers -Based On The New Passport 8780 Packet Voice Gateway and Passport 4740 <>
October 16, 1998 BOSTON, MA, Oct. 15 /PRNewswire/ via
NewsEdge Corporation -- Nortel Networks'
(NYSE: NT/TSE: NTL) MultiService Connect
is a revolutionary, integrated-access
technology that provides carriers the first
complete voice-plus-data access integration
platform over a packet based infrastructure.
Nortel Networks' MultiService Connect
enables a service provider to efficiently
bundle all services (including local and
long-distance telephony as well as data
communications) over a single connection.
The need for multiple access links is
eliminated and carriers' customers will be able
to conduct multiple voice calls, fax
transmissions, data communications links, run
advanced applications, and access the
Internet over a single link. Customers no
longer have to lease separate, often
underutilized links for each service.
Bandwidth is dynamically allocated to IP and
other bursty data while maintaining full
toll-quality voice.
''MultiService Connect is revolutionizing the
way carriers will deliver services to small and
large businesses alike,'' said Clarence
Chandran, president, Carrier Packet
Networks, Nortel Networks. ''It provides the
carrier with the capability to converge data,
voice, and video traffic into innovative,
revenue-building service packages, while
reducing the end-user's total communications
costs. With MultiService Connect, a virtual
point-of-presence is created by the carrier
on the customer's premises. This provides
the carrier with the ability to efficiently
deliver to end-users the new services they
want.''
''Economic advantage will be achieved by
those carriers that manage to consolidate
network infrastructures,'' said Lee Doyle, vice
president, Worldwide LAN & Data
Communications at International Data
Corporation. By enabling carriers to provide
multiple services over a single network,
MultiService Connect can reduce carrier cost
structures. Doyle continued to say, ''by
using packet-based backbone technology,
the network cost to deliver a typical voice
call will drop to a fraction of the cost of that
same call on a traditional circuit-switched
voice networks.''
MultiService Connect also provides the
foundation for redefining the competitive
landscape for local and long distance
telephony as well as data communications
services. Carriers, including Competitive Local
Exchange Carriers (CLECs), Inter-Exchange
Carriers (IXCs), and even Regional Bell
Operating Companies (RBOCs) that want to
extend their capabilities outside of their
territory, must lease T1 access lines from
local service providers. By collapsing
separate, independently managed service
networks onto a single T1/E1-integrated
access facility, MultiService Connect will
allow these competitive carriers to reduce
the cost of delivering service to the
customer-access.
MultiService Connect transcends current
Frame Relay Access Device (FRAD) or
Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM)
voice/data integration solutions in two very
powerful ways. First, current solutions only
enable the integration of voice and data for
intra-enterprise or ''on-net''
communications. Businesses must continue
to maintain separate network access for
telephony through the Public Switched
Telephone Network (PSTN), reducing any
cost advantage gained from the integration.
Secondly, current solutions provide only near
toll quality voice capabilities. Users may be
willing to tolerate sub-standard voice quality
for internal conversations, but this is
unacceptable for customers.
The unique capabilities of MultiService
Connect are due to the combination of the
revolutionary Passport 8780 Packet Voice
Gateway and the new Passport 4740
MultiService Access Platform to provide an
open, standards-based solution.
The Passport 4740 is a multiservice access
platform that delivers both cost-effective
performance and service flexibility. The
Passport 4740 is designed to support a wide
variety of standards-based user services,
including digital T1/E1 voice, frame relay,
TDM/circuit emulation, and IP services. All of
this traffic can be transported to the
carrier's network over a single ATM link.
Crucial in maintaining toll-quality voice, the
Passport 4740 features advanced, fully
integrated voice compression, echo
cancellation, and delay management
technology.
The Passport 8780 Packet Voice Gateway,
located within the service provider's point of
presence, provides a point of consolidation
for traffic originating from multiple Passport
4740s. The Passport 8780 can serve as a
relay for end-user data traffic to existing
public data networks and/or the Internet.
The key functionality of the Passport 8780 is
its efficient bridging of voice traffic between
Passport 4740s and the public switched
telephone network (PSTN). The Passport
8780 delivers reliable PSTN toll-quality voice
integration, and is optimized for carrier-scale
density and scalability. Equipped with
standards-based, high-density, DS-3/E3
channelized interfaces, the Passport 8780
interoperates with most PSTN voice
switches, supporting the interworking of both
CAS and CCS signaling. It features a
powerful digital signal processing (DSP)
server architecture, which delivers advanced
voice processing density and quality,
optimized for carrier-scale applications. The
Passport 8780 can be configured with
multiple DSP-based voice-processing server
cards, with each card supporting 720+
simultaneous voice channels. A single
Passport 8780 shelf can support up to 3000
DS0 voice channels.
Both the Passport 4740 and Passport 8780
have been designed with full support of open
standards. Both support channel-associated
signaling (CAS) as well as common channel
signaling (CCS) for optimal call control
flexibility. MultiService Connect products
feature ATM Forum-compliant interfaces and
traffic management capabilities. Both the
Passport 4740 and 8780 systems support
highly efficient AAL-2, an emerging standard
for voice telephony over ATM. AAL-2-based
voice encoding provides enhanced Quality of
Service (QoS) and takes advantage of the
binary characteristic of voice
communications by making all the system
bandwidth available to data when no one is
talking, resulting in increased networking
efficiency and improved data traffic
performance.
The Passport 4740 and Passport 8780 are in
initial trials now and will be generally
available during the first quarter of 1999.
Pricing for MultiService Connect will start at
about US$10,000 per site in a minimum
carrier deployment.
SOURCE Northern Telecom Limited
/CONTACT: Al Safarikas, Nortel Networks
(919) 905-2498, al.safarikas(at)nortel.com;
Frank McNally, Nortel Networks, (703)
712-8374, frankmcnally(at)nortel.com; Or
visit Nortel Networks' web-site at
www.nortelnetworks.com; Nortel's press
releases are also available through CNO-Call
by fax at (800) 758-5804, ext. 122158 or at
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