The telecommunications server revolution.

Telecom systems today consist mainly of handsets that act as dumb terminals connected to a proprietary switch. Several political and technological forces are driving a move to PC-based telephony solutions. Global telephone deregulation is creating demand for new equipment, advances such as IP telephony are blurring the line between voice and data and the CompactPCI standard provides a framework for hot-swapping and high availability in an open PC platform. The trend toward PCs in the telecom market is well established, and PC systems are now taking market share from traditional proprietary solutions. Forty percent of systems used for adjunct servers are PC-based, and the benefits of replacing proprietary equipment with a universal telecom server quickly become obvious. Universal servers are integrated systems that perform switching and voice and data services in one box. Existing universal solutions use primarily circuit-switched technology, but a shift toward packet switching is underway.
Today's telecommunication solutions consist primarily of dumb terminals (telephone sets) connected to proprietary switches. Any intelligence in the system resides in the public switched telephone network (PSTN), at the private branch exchange (PBX), or in adjunct servers that provide enhanced services such as voice mail. Because these components are primarily closed and proprietary, customization is limited and difficult. In addition, until recently, network service providers faced little competition. All of this is beginning to change.
There are many forces in the market today--both political and technological--that are combining to change the face of telecommunications solutions:
* The deregulation of the telecommunications industry in the U.S., Europe, and Japan is creating global demand for new equipment. This invites new entrants into the market and puts pressure on existing players to create new services and features quickly and inexpensively.
* The lines between voice and data communications are blurring. Corporate network managers are demanding the consolidation of voice, data, and video onto a single, managed network. Internet Protocol (IP) telephony is emerging as the technology to provide this solution.
* CompactPCI is providing the framework for high availability and hot swap capability in an open PC-based platform. These components allow developers to deliver new, innovative, reliable services.
* Operating system providers and groupware providers are looking to telephony applications to increase their market penetration. These vendors provide low-cost development tools and a trained workforce for distributing and supporting PC-based telephony solutions.
These market forces signal a common theme: Information technology (IT) managers can take advantage of a broad technology base which delivers more features cost effectively that boost productivity and reduce operations expense. In other words, they need solutions that allow equipment vendors to take advantage of PC-based building blocks, reducing time to market and providing easy integration into communications networks around the world.
The PC' s penetration of the telecommunications market is a logical progression of a well-established and accelerating trend. Today, the most time-consuming task when deploying new or enhanced telecommunications services is software development. Not only do PCs offer the richest software environment available, but they also have the largest trained workforce in the industry. New hardware technologies are often developed on PCs first because PCs offer a convenient platform on which to work.
In addition to reduced time to market and the prevalence of PCs in the marketplace, there are other trends pointing to the penetration of the telecommunications industry by PC-based open platforms. These include more memory and processing power on the desktop, increased communications capacity of the telecom buses within PCs, the availability of high- and low-density PC-based telephony solutions, and support for hot swap and high availability features.
PC systems have already begun to make inroads into primarily proprietary solutions. About 40% of the systems used for adjunct services today are PC-based. But the obvious advantages of PC-based components are seen when existing telecommunications solutions are replaced by universal telecommunications servers.
Universal telecommunications servers are integrated systems that basically "do it all." Telecommunications servers perform switching as well as enhanced services in a single box. There is no need for a proprietary switch plus one or more separate adjunct servers. All of these functions can now be supported in a single, open system.
These integrated systems are built with components from multiple vendors. Cost-effective, richer unified messaging applications with a software focus are beginning to emerge. Developers do not have to design hardware or middleware--they can choose a PC, open telecommunications hardware, and message handling software, out of the box, from a number of vendors. This allows individual companies to focus on their core competency, resulting in better, faster, and less expensive products.
The advantages of an open universal telecommunications server are just too great for the industry to ignore. Existing, proprietary switches are expensive, hard to modify, and provide basically only network control. An adjunct server has to be added for every new service, for example, voice mail, interactive voice response, and personal number service. Connecting and integrating these adjunct servers with a proprietary switch is often a complicated task.
Contrast this with the universal telecommunications server where each adjunct service is replaced by integrated software running in a single PC. This integrated solution requires software built on standard interfaces such as telephony application programming interface (TAPI). Adding a new service under this open architecture only involves adding more software.
And the universal telecommunications server eliminates most of the hardware required in the traditional enhanced services architecture, reducing equipment purchase, integration, and maintenance costs.
FUTURE TRENDS
The universal telecommunication servers emerging in today' s market are primarily built on circuit-switched technology and are already delivering tangible value. Over the next few years, however, there will be a shift toward packet-switched technology with IP as the carrier protocol of choice.
The movement toward IP telephony, or implementing telephony applications on a data network via IP, is already underway. Major vendors have embraced the International Telecommunication Union's H.323--a suite of audio and video conferencing standards for sending multimedia data, including voice telephony, over packet networks. IP telephony leverages long-term technology trends, is accessible and customizable by those in the computer industry, and has at least a 10 times price-performance advantage over traditional telephony.
The current revolution being staged by universal telecommunications servers is conceptually identical to the information technology revolution of the 1980s, when PCs and workstations supplanted expensive, proprietary hardware and software architectures. Expect this revolution to continue and eventually extend to all aspects of telecommunications--from the desktop to the PBX, to the central office switch, and beyond.
Steckbeck is the director of software product management at Natural MicroSystems and holds a B.S. in mathematics from George Mason University.