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Finally ... a way to create affordable, robust voice-over-IP systems.

For years, we have been hearing about voice over IP (VoIP) and how it will revolutionize making calls. Yet, despite enthusiastic predictions, VoIP is still far from a pervasive reality. Why? The reason is simple. VoIP systems need to be developed to deliver services cost effectively, while--at the same time--maintaining a level of continuous availability comparable to that of the dial tone people expect and demand when using the phone.

Until now, these two expectations--affordability and high availability--have been mutually exclusive, effectively suppressing the emergence of VoIP. Happily, there now is a way out of this dilemma. A commercial, off-the-shelf (COTS), open-systems approach that supports packet-switched protocols and network elements is now emerging for system integrators. These components can then be used to create systems that enable providers to offer cost-effective, highly available IP-based services that are easily scaleable and extremely robust. The resulting systems will allow operators to provide VoIP services at a price point the market will readily accept and at a quality-of-service level far superior to PC-based approaches.

VoIP is one of many services emerging today predicated on a packet-based communication. Other services include toll bypass, wireless and video services. The existing, massive telephony infrastructure, however, is not packet-based and is not likely to be replaced by intelligent packet-based devices in the short term. Consequently, extra hardware is needed to access the packet network, augmenting the traditional circuit-switched networks.

Various attempts at developing this IP-based hardware have been made but, for one reason or another, they have not taken hold. One approach was to deliver the desired performance using proprietary platforms, but that could only be done at a premium price. Conversely, costs could be driven down to acceptable levels using widely available IP-based PC technologies, but only by dramatically compromising on the quality, reliability and, most importantly, the availability of the overall system.

What is needed is a set of COTS components to support packet-switched protocols, network elements and an open-systems approach. Then, with commonly available hardware and software, service providers will no longer have to depend on proprietary technology and the associated costs to acquire and maintain specialized networks. Instead, they will be able to focus on service features and functions, while relying on a vigorously competing community of OEMs to provide standardized building blocks.

The challenge is to develop systems that can deliver all of these services not only cost effectively but, simultaneously, meet the stringent level of availability, consumers have come to expect from their conditioning by the public switched telecom network.

A SOLID, COTS FOUNDATION

The first step in establishing a viable VoIP solution is creating a COTS-based architecture that supports a plenitude of advanced services at an affordable cost. Recently, several open-standard, board-level architectures for advanced telecommunications have been introduced. Built around the CompactPCI standard, these approaches take the best of the proprietary world and combine it with the best of the PC world.

For all its strengths, however, the CompactPCI standard as it stands today cannot support the five-nines (99.999% uptime) high-availability requirements that telcos demand and customers expect when making a call--whether it be VoIP or over a traditional telephone line. To meet the more aggressive high-availability requirements the telecommunications market mandates, the basic CompactPCI standard needs to be extended and enhanced.

Although a COTS-based architecture for telecommunications is an important first step toward achieving a realistic VoIP solution, digital signal process (DSP) capabilities in a CompactPCI board that come from other third-party vendors are absolutely essential to deliver true VoIP. Using such a modular system, service providers can provide VoIP services at a price point the market will readily accept and at a quality-of-service level far superior to PC-based approaches.

SOLUTIONS FOR DEVELOPERS

The critical component in making VoIP a reality is voice compression and transcoding provided by the DSP board. A voice transcoder performs signal processing that translates digitized speech from one data rate to another in full duplex communication.

This particular solution provides a set of building blocks that supports voice-over-packet networks (e.g., IP, ATM, frame relay), voice recording and archival, mobile communications, in the form of vocoders for GSM, IS95/136 cellular, speech recognition and network-based hands-free dialing.

Next-generation COTS architectures are now emerging that are capable of sustaining the demands of advanced telecommunications applications in an affordable, flexible platform--and one of these applications is most certainly VoIP. Melding these third-party, modular architectures with advanced DSP, board-based solutions gives integrators the foundational technologies they need to quickly create robust VoIP platforms in a cost-effective approach. With the advent of such highly available COTS hardware, DSP capabilities and software IP-based solution, VoIP is finally poised to become a reality.

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Rao is group product marketing manager for Sun Microsystems in Palo Alto, CA.

www.sun.com/microelectronics

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