IEC: On-Line Education: WPF: The Coming of True Convergence: Why Service Providers Can Finally Turn Out the Lights on the Old Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN)

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The Coming of True Convergence: Why Service Providers Can Finally Turn Out the Lights on the Old Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN)

Table of Contents:

Definition and Overview

1. Introduction

2. True Convergence

3. What It Takes to Be Carrier-Grade

4. The Protocol War

5. Converged Tools and Service Creation

Definition and Overview

Definition
The real definition of convergence is straightforward. In a converged network environment, a user’s voice network should work in the same manner as his or her data network and vice versa. In other words, the way a user performs actions with familiar tools in the data world should not change as voice services are added into an Internet protocol (IP) or asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) network.

Overview
As the Internet and e-commerce roared into prominence during the 1990s, the true convergence of voice and data networks continued to elude the network industry despite impressive levels of spending on research and development. While there were a few flashes of what convergence could offer, for the most part users money could be saved by putting voice calls onto data networks, especially for high-priced international calls. And at the end of the decade, there was the initial foray of the incumbent local-exchange carriers (ILECs) into voice over digital subscriber line (VoDSL). ILECs began offering a few basic features, such as dial tone and call waiting, over what had been data-only DSL lines. But the ILECs’ first-generation DSL solution is only converged in the sense that it lets the expensive—and, more important to the ILECs, already installed—Class-5 switches talk to plain old telephone service (POTS) phones across a DSL link. The problem with this approach, which is based on the GR303 protocol, is it virtually ignores every other type of device a subscriber has access to apart from a Touch Tone phone.

This tutorial will delve into the issues behind true convergence. It is not enough to just be able to run voice over data networks, because the public switched telephone network (PSTN), fondly dubbed "POTS" works just fine. The next-generation network must solve the problems of matching or exceeding PSTN levels of service, of interoperating between many protocols vying for ascendancy, and of unlocking value-added, enhanced services that will allow service providers to differentiate themselves from the competition.

1. Introduction >>