WestWave to add brains to carrier access gear
WestWave, a start-up that has kept quiet until now, later this year will introduce an access switch it says will make deployment of voice over DSL and other emerging services less expensive and more efficient.
The company will sell a software-based access switch, as yet unnamed, that brings signaling and control capabilities to relatively dumb access concentration devices in carrier networks that directly link to customer lines.
Traditionally, signaling and control are incorporated in expensive switches that sit in service provider switching offices. Combining the switching capabilities of the access concentrators with the signaling and control from WestWave's access switch results in an edge device that can sort traffic, prioritize it and set up switched virtual circuits to carry it to the appropriate backbone network.
In the case of voice over DSL, the access device, called a DSL access multiplexer (DSLAM), would sort packet voice coming from customers from data coming from customers and could trunk the traffic directly to voice or data networks. That would eliminate the need for separate gateway hardware to sort and switch the traffic after it is aggregated by the DSLAM, says David Ehreth, president and CEO of WestWave.
The company will also make a hardware blade that fits in newer versions of traditional voice access gear in carrier networks called digital loop carriers (DLCs). The new DLCs will feature DSL termination blades as well. The WestWave blade will convert incoming packet voice to traditional phone traffic and trunk it to the carrier's voice switches.
The WestWave switch could similarly sort calls bound for ISPs. Carrier access concentration devices would be able to identify phone calls headed for ISPs before they reach the local phone switches and trunk them directly to the appropriate ISP, relieving congestion that Internet calls can create.
"This is very pragmatic. It takes into account the real local loop where there is a DLC between the end user and the [switching office]," says Hilary Mine, an analyst with Probe Research.
Using WestWave gear, service providers can set up services such as packet voice over DSL links for 50% to 70% less than they would spend if they used a more centralized network architecture, WestWave claims.
The company needs to develop software interfaces between its switch and carrier access devices to add control and signaling capabilities. WestWave has an exclusive agreement with Alcatel to develop such an interface with Alcatel's Litespan digital loop carrier access device. Alcatel owns 34% of the market for such devices, according to Hilary Mine, an analyst with Probe Research.
WestWave CEO Ehreth formerly helped develop Litespan, and Alcatel is an investor in WestWave.
The WestWave access switch goes into customer trials this spring. Pricing has not been set.
» posted by ITworld staff
Network World
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