June 28, 2006

Expo ... VoIP Control ... IMS

Weekly Erlang: A Digest of Telephony News Traffic

By Jim Barthold

This from Cable-Tec

Some things that happened or were announced in or around the Cable-Tec Expo ... Proxiliant Systems-hardly a household name, but at least an exhibitor unlike the previously mentioned BandTel-used the Denver show to preview its Cable Access Management System that's intended to help operators "really see predictably what's happening in the HFC cloud" by using intelligent access controllers, said Sonia Khodemi, Proxiliant's CEO. As cable operators deploy more use-sensitive applications, they "need to understand the health of their network," and the CAMS system deploys Intelligent Access Controllers loaded with health manager software throughout the HFC plant loaded to monitor real-time critical fault and performance, among other things. The software looks at about 30 home clients and provides comprehensive information about cable-based network and service performance for such features as VoIP, the company said ... JDSU introduced its VoIP NetComplete Service Assurance Solution for the cable industry combining test, measurement and monitoring applications for mass market VoIP deployment ... Nortel said that Liberty Global signed a global purchase agreement through 2007 and that Suddenlink Communications,unbelievably one of the "two largest cable operators in the United States," at least according to Nortel, will use the Canadian vendor's VoIP technology to provide a suite of telephone and multimedia services to its customers.

More VoIP Network Control

Coastal Technologies Group introduced a tool to let carriers-including cable operators deploying VoIP services-improve automated order processing and management and, more importantly, detect fraud in VoIP systems. "We do interconnect reconciliation, revenue assurance, fraud management, phantom traffic detection and correction, and business intelligence for telco carriers, regardless whether it's wireline, wireless, IP, cable telephony," said Jay Bowker,vice president of global sales and marketing. It might become a problem as cable subscribers figure out ways to potentially use their VoIP connections as free routes to international calls. "You could set up a VoIP termination at your home and run a gateway out of your home bypassing the local carrier," Bowker pointed out. Coastal's technology, he said, would detect high loads of international calls coming into an address without a corresponding amount of reciprocal termination and send an e-mail to the service provider warning that there's probably fraud going on. "For the domestic carriers, it looks like a domestic call, but then if somebody is running a fraudulent VoIP gateway out of their home or business, there could be a high likelihood of fraud," Bowker said.

Your IMS Fix

For those of you who can't go a week without an IMS mention, here's a couple. Mindspeed Technologies announced a comprehensive wireless software suite for its VoIP processor family that delivers what it called the industry's most highly optimized platform for implementing GSM/W-CDMA and CDMA media gateways with support for IMS and fixed-mobile convergence ... Sonus Networks grabbed a multi-million dollar deal with Carphone Warehouse subsidiary Opal Networks to deliver an IMS-ready network to 2.6 million subscribers in the U.K.

Analysts Say

This might be a little new-wave for the telecommunications industry, but telecommunications and information technology consulting firm Detecom'slatest management report focuses on the-and we're not making this up-"Telecom Innovation Lifecycle." Called "Materializing Telco Innovation: How to Get it Right," Detecom claims the report is a "must read for executives concerned with creating sustainable competitive advantage through new products and services" ... Those reading that report might also have been participants in yet another research firm's work. Forrester Research's latest survey of telecom decision makers at North American enterprises and small-medium businesses (SMBs) determined that 56 percent of enterprises expect spending on mobile voice to increase this year while 63 percent expect an increase in mobile data spending.

The ‘Gates' Have Opened