5 February 2003 Reality and Future Softswitch - Reality and Future Nikolay Ilyin Chief Technical Officer RealEast Networks ITEXPO |Session: Focus on Softswitch|

5 February 2003 Reality and Future Softswitch - Reality and Future Contents  Main stages  Problems solved by softswitches  Proposed solutions  New trends

5 February 2003 Reality and Future Softswitch - Reality and Future Softswitch Evolution – Main Stages  SIP/H323 converter  Class 5 platforms  Distributed universal systems

5 February 2003 Reality and Future Softswitch - Reality and Future  NAT/firewall, Security requirements  Productivity/no bottlenecks  Easy to introduce services  Sophisticated billing  Total system control and monitoring Problems to be solved

5 February 2003 Reality and Future Softswitch - Reality and Future Problems - NAT/firewall, Security Requirements  Now most of the end-users are behind the firewall/NAT. That makes RTP traffic flow provisioning more complicated.  In some circumstances clients do not want to provide their identity to other users.

5 February 2003 Reality and Future Softswitch - Reality and Future Problems - Productivity/ No Bottlenecks  The systems should be designed in such a way that do not have bottleneck point.  Softswitch’s capacity should be easily upgraded as the business grows.

5 February 2003 Reality and Future Softswitch - Reality and Future Problems - Easy to Introduce Services  TELCOs/system integrators want to have an ability for the quick introduction of new Revenue Generation Services.  New Service introduction should not require changes in the many parts of the system, just few slight changes acceptable.

5 February 2003 Reality and Future Softswitch - Reality and Future Problems – Sophisticated Billing  Billing requirements became more complicated.  Requirements: –Realtime billing –Multi-Service based billing –Web portal for customers & resellers

5 February 2003 Reality and Future Softswitch - Reality and Future Problems –Total Control and Monitoring of Money Making System  System owners (administrators) want to control the infrastructure systems 24x7  Easy-to-use and at the same time powerful control mechanisms are required to manage highly distributed solutions.  Open standards provide multi vendor support

5 February 2003 Reality and Future Softswitch - Reality and Future Proposed Architecture  Overview  Principles

5 February 2003 Reality and Future Softswitch - Reality and Future Architecture – Overview

5 February 2003 Reality and Future Softswitch - Reality and Future Architecture – Principles  The switching is distributed among the number of dedicated modules (no central unit)  Separation of service logic from the signaling/media handling  Is not tied to the particular signaling/media type  Does not rely on the particular media server platform’s vendor  IP-centric

5 February 2003 Reality and Future Softswitch - Reality and Future the Problems Solutions  Smart signaling/RTP NAT agents, RTP proxying/scripting  Distributed architecture/clustering  Application servers/totally web enabled  Integrated billing  Realtime SNMP monitoring

5 February 2003 Reality and Future Softswitch - Reality and Future Solutions - Smart Sign./RTP NAT Agents, RTP proxying/crypting

5 February 2003 Reality and Future Softswitch - Reality and Future Solutions - Distributed Architecture/clustering  Software side – processing is spread out among the different software servers  Hadware(low level) side – clustering

5 February 2003 Reality and Future Softswitch - Reality and Future Solutions – Application Servers/totally Web Enabled  Scenarios handling  Voice/fax/  Events scheduling

5 February 2003 Reality and Future Softswitch - Reality and Future Solutions – Integrated Billing It requires integration of the billing with other components of Softswitch.

5 February 2003 Reality and Future Softswitch - Reality and Future Solutions - Real time SNMP Monitoring  SNMP is common standard, supported by a number of known tools such as HP OpenView and etc.  SNMP is combined with extention standards, like AgentX.

5 February 2003 Reality and Future Softswitch - Reality and Future Current Applications  IP-Centrex (IP-Office)  Advanced calling cards  VoIP exchange/Clearing house  ASP/outsourcing

5 February 2003 Reality and Future Softswitch - Reality and Future Applications – IP-Centrex (IP-office)

5 February 2003 Reality and Future Softswitch - Reality and Future Applications – Advanced calling cards  Online billing  SS7, PRI ISDN  LC/COS/QoS/channel load routing,  Authentication by trunk group/DNIS/ANI/prefix  Remote control on the Web

5 February 2003 Reality and Future Softswitch - Reality and Future Applications - VoIP exchange/Clearing house Clearing houses become common and convenient tools for a number of the customer types – small sized carriers, end-users.

5 February 2003 Reality and Future Softswitch - Reality and Future Applications - ASP/outsourcing  ASP based business model – can be provided by outsourcing of full range of the Softswitch services to a number of customers – authentication, routing, billing  In strongly competitive economy ASP-model reduces financial risks for carriers.

5 February 2003 Reality and Future Softswitch - Reality and Future Trends  Wireless support (Wi-Fi, other)  New media  VoIP houses - direct access to traffic sellers  UM applications utilizing speech technologies

5 February 2003 Reality and Future Softswitch - Reality and Future Trends – Wireless Support Next generation end users will have just simple PDAs with IP-phones installed and use full range of the services that the Softswitch can provide (IP-Centrex, etc.)

5 February 2003 Reality and Future Softswitch - Reality and Future Trends – New media  Support of live mixed media traffic (video/audio/graphics/text)  Content-on-demand  Video-conferencing  IM

5 February 2003 Reality and Future Softswitch - Reality and Future Trends – VoIP houses  VoIP houses will allow for the customers to directly access to the actual traffic sellers, avoiding the costs associated with ‘intermediate’ carriers  Sophisticated routing schemes will be implemented – dynamic QoS (policy agents)  Combination a variety of telecom services on demand (not just traffic termination)

5 February 2003 Reality and Future Softswitch - Reality and Future Trends – UM applications  UM applications will utilize intellectual voice gateways to provide fully automated service generation frameworks  UM applications will combine more media types: including live video, audio, text

5 February 2003 Reality and Future Softswitch - Reality and Future Tasks to resolve  Security – CPEs do not support encryption  Minimization of the bandwidth utilization for some applications (IP-Centrex)  WEB telephony support (mobile IP, DHCP, etc.)

5 February 2003 Reality and Future Softswitch - Reality and Future Questions ??? ?

5 February 2003 Reality and Future Softswitch - Reality and Future Contacts RealEast Networks, LLC Thank You Thank You