The use of modular building blocks allows new solutions to be developed and delivered to market more quickly than ever before. Additional advantages of a modular, next-generation architecture include:

• Application developers can work at a high level of abstraction, maximizing effectiveness around telephony and data functions.
• Applications can be tailored to specific customer environments, and yet are portable at the same time.
• Technology roadmaps are managed for routine functions and interfaces, so application developers are free to do what they do best – design and implement innovative communications applications around leading edge technology.
• Development and maintenance costs are driven down – resources do not have to be spent rewriting low-level protocols.

Using modular building blocks, customers can add industry standard components as they need them, and at a lowest possible cost. Also, building block components protect customer investments by allowing applications to stay in market longer. All of these advantages translate to superior applications–at a lower cost and with a solid return on the solution investment.

In order to ensure that modular components work together seamlessly, many organizations in the industry are working on standards, specifications, recommendations, and protocols. Because of the enormous success of standards in the recent past, most notably in the emergence of the personal computer and the Internet, standards in telecommunications are seen to be critical to future growth and progress. Numerous associations, forums, consortiums, and working groups help to shape standards within the telecommunications industry. It is critical that any next-generation solution platform adhere to these standards.