Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Softswitch Solutions
Paul Brittain
Product Manager, MetaSwitch
• Introduction
• Migration Models
• Access or core network
• Gateways vs. full Softswitch
• Business view
• Engineering challenges
• Firewalls/NAT hassles
• Reliability – how big should a Softswitch go?
• Philosophy!
INTRODUCTIONS
• MetaSwitch
• MetaSwitch VP3500 Next Generation Class 5 Switch
• Proven solution for broadband and legacy voice
• Nearly 30 deployments
• Division of Data Connection
• Leading independent provider of networking and
IP applications technology
• Privately-owned and self-funded - stable
• Consistently profitable since establishment in 1981
• 2002: Revenue $35M, Earnings $11M
• 275 employees in US and UK
MIGRATION MODELS
Various SS7
POTS / TDM / TDM
PSTN
IAD
IAD or
IP Phone
BLC or Class 4/NGN
DSLAM VP3500 Tandem
NGN Class 5 Switch
Switch
IAD
BLC or Class 4
DSLAM VP3500 Tandem
NGN Class 5 Switch
Switch
• Technical View
• Omitted distributed CA/MG/TG/SG options for clarity
• Business view
• Driven by network convergence savings
• Both capex and opex reduced using single voice/data network
• Biggest savings in the access network
• Carriers spend ~10x more on access equipment than on core
• Some carriers hitting urgent switch capacity issues
• In all cases, equipment and supplier must be reliable
SO WHAT WORKS?
Next-Generation
IP / Cable eMTA
Class 5 Switch CMTS
PSTN
POTS
DLC
T1
IAD
ATM Switch
DSL
IAD
DSLAM
ENGINEERING CHALLENGES
• Reliability limits
• Carrier class softswitches are, of course, reliable ☺
• In theory, can build a softswitch supporting millions of lines
or even a whole network – but where’s the survivability?
• Suggest limit single Call Agent domain to <= ~250k subs