Could this get the Harris Switch up and running? Well maybe if things are not as smooth between packets and switchs over in the Harris secton of FNet, this could be a solution. Is the Harris switch active now? Are there problems, if not, why haven't there been any press releases with oncoming traffic reports, i.e. contracts with oversea affiliates.
Not bad for 100k
Castle Networks First to Market with Turnkey Central Office Platform for Switching Voice and Data
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 makes 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. |
