FC, what'ya think of this product? Castle Networks First to Market with Turnkey Central Office Platform for Switching Voice and Data
January 12, 1999
WESTFORD, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)
C2100 Services Mediation Platform (SMP)
enables carriers to deliver new services;
Rocky Mountain Internet and leading service
providers launch beta tests
Castle Networks(TM), Inc. today unveiled its
flagship product, the Castle Networks C2100
Services Mediation Platform (SMP), a next
generation central office (CO) platform built
from the ground up to switch both voice and
data traffic. The C2100 SMP is a new class
of equipment that unbundles voice switching
from Class 5 equipment and allows service
providers to quickly expand into regional
markets offering integrated voice and data
services to business customers. The turnkey
solution is also a platform for peering with
long distance providers and efficiently
feeding data traffic to ISPs.
Rocky Mountain Internet, an ISP turning
full-service CLEC, will begin field trials of the
C2100 platform this month. "We are quickly
moving towards the day when most
businesses and consumers will receive their
voice, data and video services from one
company providing one bill," said Douglas H.
Hanson, president, chairman and CEO of
Rocky Mountain Internet. "With the
implementation of a convergent switch, such
as the C2100, and the further development
of our on-line convergent billing system, RMI
is building the vital infrastructure that will
enable it to be a leader in this convergent
industry. "
Built on the Services Mediation Architecture
(SMA(TM)) announced by the company in
November 1998, the hardware/software is
designed to provide the mediation required to
transparently connect to any service from
any network regardless of disparate
signaling, access and network technologies in
one single platform. The C2100 will be shown
for the first time at ComNet '99 in
Washington D.C.
"In the short term, the C2100 SMP lets
service providers roll out differentiated
services very quickly and with a whole new
cost model that translates to much higher
margins. For example, carriers that can
rapidly expand into new regional markets, by
unbundling voice switching from the Class 5
and deploying a product that also supports
data, have a tremendous opportunity to
capture these new markets," said Tom
Burkardt, chairman, president and co-founder
of Castle Networks. "In the long term, the
value of this platform is its next generation
architecture that mediates signaling,
transport and management functions to
deliver next generation applications. "
The Castle Networks C2100 SMP puts forth a
completely new technology and economic
model for existing CO equipment dedicated to
delivering high revenue voice services, and
brings a 10 - 20 times improvement in both
price and density. By applying the economies
and efficiencies of data networking
technology to the Public Switched Telephone
Network (PSTN), the C2100 SMP employs a
distributed processing model that unbundles
core voice switching from the Class 5
mainframe, while still leveraging its
feature-rich software. And, with support for
data inherent in its architecture, the platform
takes advantage of the ubiquity and
reliability of the PSTN to migrate carriers and
end users from the circuit-switched
environment of today to tomorrow's networks
of multiple circuit, packet and cell
technologies.
"Castle is the first vendor in the
next-generation voice infrastructure
marketplace to get the story right. The
problem service providers face in the future
is mediation of voice services across multiple
backbone types, and that's the problem that
Castle solves," said Tom Nolle, president of
CIMI Corporation. "There aren't many real
billion-dollar market spaces for startup
companies, and Castle has found one of
them. Their approach will eat all the simple
VoIP players alive!"
C2100 SMP Specifications, Features and
Pricing
The C2100 SMP fulfills the stringent reliability
and scalability requirements of the PSTN
while leveraging the flexibility and density
attributes of the Internet and public data
networks to deliver a true next generation,
multi-centric platform. The product
specifications and features are provided
below:
Dimensions -- Measuring 30"x15"x23", the
C2100 SMP chassis takes up four square feet
of space and provides 10-20 times the
density of existing solutions. The chassis
contains 19 slots, two slots dedicated for
redundant Shelf Controller Engine (SCE), two
slots for redundant Call Processing Engine
(CPE) and 15 slots for trunk/access modules.
This allows for "pay as you grow" modularity,
with current capacity for up to 15
channelized DS-3s per chassis, giving 840
channelized DS-1s per seven foot rack. The
product meets Network Equipment Building
Standards (NEBS) level 3 requirements for CO
compliance; and standard CO BITS and
alarms and -48V DC power feed are provided
for compliance in co-location facilities.
Scalability -- To support as many calls as
possible in a single chassis, the C2100 SMP
has a 80,000 DS-0 TDM bus backplane and a
3Gbps cell bus for increasing capacity (the
cell bus also allows for the mix and match of
different technologies within the chassis).
Using 16 SS7 A/F Links, the product supports
in excess of 1.2 million Busy Hour Call
Completions (BHCC). Multiple chassis can be
clustered to form a "system" that scales to
over 240,000 DS-0s. The product is
architected with a distributed framework,
providing processing capability, switching
capacity, and power are distributed on each
trunk/access module. As you add modules to
the chassis, switching, signaling, power and
trunk/access capacity are increased.
Flexibility -- The product was designed to be
flexible in nature, supporting voice, data,
integrated access and private line services.
The signaling plane is designed to
accommodate all signaling call models and
enables any-to-any signaling, while the
management of traffic policy models allows
customer provisioning/control of traffic. The
C2100 SMP provides a traditional circuit
switch call model as well as support for
emerging IP and ATM call models being
developed.
Reliability -- Engineered to 99.999%, the
C2100 SMP features 1:1 redundancy for all
common equipment; and 1:N redundancy for
DS-3 trunk/access modules. In addition to
24-hour holdover, redundant timing is
featured on the SCE and rolling upgrades are
supported so that firmware can be replaced
without bringing the system down. A dual
management bus is provided -- in the event
that one fails, the other can manage the
chassis.
Pricing and Availability
Base system pricing starts at $101,500 and
includes a chassis, SCE, CPE and channelized
DS-3 trunk/access module (DXM). Customer
trials begin this month with first customer
shipment scheduled for July 1999.
Management Mediation
Just as the C2100 SMP mediates the
signaling and transport technologies of
different networks, it also provides mediation
between the different management systems
and skill sets of the voice and data worlds.
One feature of management mediation
provides a common underlying management
system with different user interfaces so that
it can be operated by personnel with
different skill sets; another feature is
seamless integration into existing operations
support systems (OSS) such as billing,
provisioning, fault management and traffic
engineering.
Mediating between legacy and new
technologies is critical to reducing
management operating expenses while
migrating to next generation architectures.
Since legacy OSS management systems are
expensive and complex, service providers are
looking to leverage existing systems; and the
situation is further complicated by separate
OSS's for voice and data services in carrier
networks. The C2100 SMP takes an open
systems approach to management with
complete SNMP access to OSS functions and
both JAVA and command line interfaces (CLI)
that let the legacy systems work with the
multiple new systems.
Applications for Service Providers
The C2100 SMP offers four lucrative
applications for service providers, including:
--Regional Expansion: the small footprint, low
cost and voice/data functionality of the
C2100 allow emerging carriers to expand to
new markets quickly and cost-effectively.
While a carrier may deploy a Class 5 switch
in a major market, moving into new,
second-tier markets are too high of a risk for
a high-cost central office investment.
--Bundled Services: carriers can offer
business customers voice and data services
over a single leased line interface. This
provides a means for the service provider to
differentiate and reduces the
cost/complexity of separate lines for voice
and data for the enterprise.
--IP Offload/Access: built to handle large
volumes of both voice and data traffic, the
C2100 serves as an optimum platform for
offloading data traffic from expensive digital
switches (that were designed for circuit
switched voice calls) directly to ISPs.
--Peering: the C2100 SMP operates as a
very cost-effective and space saving carrier
interconnect.
About Rocky Mountain Internet, Inc.
Rocky Mountain Internet (
rmi.net) is a national Web
Solutions and e-commerce company
providing a wide range of Internet and data
communication services to businesses and
consumers with an emphasis on e-commerce
solutions. Services include: a comprehensive
browser-based electronic commerce software
package (www.e-sell.com); a leading-edge
portal site (www.infohiway.com); and a
browser-based banner advertising
management software package
(www.infohiway.com/adcafe/). Other RMI
services consist of dedicated, DSL, dial-up
and wireless Internet access, network
management, system integration and
co-location.
Rocky Mountain Broadband, a subsidiary and
communications division of RMI, offers a wide
range of services including: paging, voice
mail, local and long distance phone service,
800 service and IP Telephony
(www.ic-ephone.net).
About Castle Networks
Castle Networks is designing next-generation
central office-based communications
platforms that address the cost-effective
convergence of circuit switched voice
networks and packet switched data
networks. The company brings together
voice and data expertise with top talent from
telecommunications and networking
companies including: Bay Networks/Nortel
Networks (NYSE:NT), Cabletron Systems
(NYSE:CS), Cascade Communications/Ascend
Communications (Nasdaq:ASND), Cisco
Systems (Nasdaq:CSCO), Digital
Equipment/Compaq Computer (NYSE:CPQ),
Lucent Technologies (NYSE:LU) and Telco
Systems (Nasdaq:TELC).
Recently selected as one of this year's Hot
Start-Ups by Data Communications
magazine, Castle Networks is a privately-held
company headquartered in Westford,
Massachusetts, focused on delivering carrier
class voice and data convergence equipment
for 21st Century telecommunications
networks. Castle Networks' mission is to
transform telecommunications by migrating
the PSTN to a high-performance, low-cost,
multi-service network irrespective of where
the user gains access. For more information,
visit our web site at
www.castlenetworks.com.
Castle Networks and SMA are trademarks of
Castle Networks, Inc. Other brand and
product names are registered trademarks or
trademarks of their respective holders. |
