Communications Technology: Archive

IP Telephony: The Race Heats Up
Vendors, Start Your Engines
By Evan Bass

As the technology for Internet protocol (IP) telephony for cable TV matures (or evolves, or migrates, depending on who youre talking to), competition for the nascent market is reaching a fever pitch. Vendors are racing to launch new products across the starting line with a focus on features, scalability, ruggedness and performance.

With multiple system operators (MSOs) gunning their engines to deploy telephony services, its a good time to check in and get an IP status report with five industry leaders: Lucent, Telcordia, Arris Interactive, ADC and Tellabs.

Murray Hill, N.J.-based Lucent Technologies made the biggest splash recently with its announcement at the Cable 99 show of a set of products and services for cable networks that will enable operators to offer packet telephony service with the features and reliability of existing telephone service.

Called Lucents CableConnect Solutions, the offering includes hardware and software for cable operator networks and customer homes and businesses, along with a portfolio of network design, installation and management services from Lucent NetCare.

Lucents CableConnect Solutions give cable operators the tools to create reliable, scalable networks with broadband bundles of telephony, high-speed data and video services.

Designed by Bell Labs, the PathStar Access Server and 7R/E Packet Solutions make up the core of Lucents CableConnect Solutions. The two products provide integrated access over cable networks, local voice and data switching and routing, and a set of telephony features, including those that generate 90 percent of the feature revenue in circuit networks today.

As part of its CableConnect Solutions, Lucent entered into a joint development and marketing agreement with Motorola, an industry powerhouse in deployment of cable modem systems. Motorolas Cable Router cable modem termination system (CMTS) and PhoneLink, a multimedia terminal adapter (MTA) that combines cable modem and IP telephony capabilities, will be integrated into Lucents offer.

Service providers realize the only economical way to deliver video, voice and data is through a converged network, which is defining itself as IP in this case, says John Slevin, director of business development for Lucents cable communications group.

"So in order to deliver a robust packet solution, we really needed to bring some capabilities in products like our PathStar and our 7R/E that can actually deliver a feature set more consistent with what customers are used to in their existing circuit-switched telephone environments," Slevin says. "Our PathStar is capable of a variety of different functions; its basically six functions in one. What were doing is marrying it to a Motorola cable data router.

"We have a suite of offerings that were creating, as well as partnering with, in order to ensure a robust, scalable, reliable high-speed voice and data network capability," he continues. "When we talk about voice, what were trying to do is inform the market of the difference between traditional voice over IP (VoIP) and what we call true telephony."

Lucents advantages over the competition depend on the environment youre in, Slevin says.

"Some companies specialize in the circuit-switched world," Slevin says. "Others are trying to evolve standards to work into the IP world. The advantages we bring are (that) we are currently building networks for real-world customers, people who need to have a manageable, scalable network that serves hundreds of thousands of subscribers, if not millions."

Lucents CableConnects Solutions will undergo a series of trials for market validation and technical reliability for the rest of 1999 before going to market late in the first quarter of 2000. Slevin declined to announce pricing at press time.

Because low-cost, high-bandwidth access to the home is prevalent now with the execution of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, hybrid fiber/coax (HFC) operators are offering local service, and long-distance companies are offering local service in the form of xDSL (digital subscriber line) or wireless technology.

This has opened up the market, and people are looking for a way to integrate data and telephony, which is where IP telephony should swoop in, says Blair King, senior marketing planner for Suwanee, Ga.-based Arris Interactive. But whether it happens soon is another question.

"The way we view it is: IP telephony has to be of the same quality as the public switched telephone network (PSTN)," King says. "When you pick up your phone in your house, you dont care if youre getting service from your local phone company or your HFC operator or whether its going to the PSTN or IP. All you care about is the quality of sound, and if you can do an emergency breakthrough or call 911. All the things you can do today you have to still be able to do. And a lot of those things are still being worked out."

A lot of the intelligence that supports those key features currently is in a switch, so in order to make VoIP viable, the intelligence has to come out of the switch and move into servers all around the network. But that creates a need for a whole different body of standards, King says.

"In order for there to be a seamless integration of voice and data over IP, you have to offer carrier-grade reliability and scalability, and you have to do it in a way thats affordable for an operator to deploy," King says. "Everybodys made a lot of progress in that. Not just Arris, but Tellabs and ADC as well."

King views this as not so much an evolution but more of a migration from circuit-switched to VoIP or Internet telephony. Arris has scheduled field trials at the end of this year to start testing some products and expects people will start to use the technology in 2000.

"We also expect there to be a huge market for the circuit-switched product," King says. "And as people upgrade their backbones and move toward voice over IP, the circuit-switched obviously starts to decline. But today circuit-switched is a proven technology; people know it works. Its a great way for HFC operators to get out there and capture customers and get in the market today and compete for local revenues."

"Arris" is defined in Websters II dictionary as "the sharp edge... formed by two surfaces meeting at an angle." In this case, Arris Interactive is the result of two market giantsNortel Networks and ANTECcoming together to develop products for delivering voice and data services over HFC networks.

Arris announced a new product June 15 called a PacketPort, which is a carrier-grade, outdoor-hardened version of the companys Voice Port, which includes Ethernet connection.

"So it basically is taking all the experience that we have in voice, and all the experience that we have in data, and is collapsing it in one single box that an operator would put on the side of someones home," King says. "Its basically an outdoor cable modem with four lines of carrier-grade lifeline telephony service applied to it. Well build redundancy into it so one system will support up to 6,400 lines of telephony. It will allow the functionality to merge both voice and data on the same platform."

Operators who already have deployed Arris Cornerstone Voice Ports would no longer need to replace them with what the company calls PacketPorts. The customer could keep those Voice Ports on the side of the home and interface into the IP world or be routed up into the PSTN.

"So if an investment has been made in switch capacity already, they could still use that capacity in the PSTN," King says. "And if they wanted to route traffic over the IP, they would have the functionality to do that as well."

Arris plans to have PacketPort in trials at the end of this year, with shipping targeted for mid-2000. King had no comment on pricing structure.

Founded in 1975, Lisle, Ill.-based Tellabs Inc. started into the cable telephony business in 1994 and has developed a product line company execs say has done pretty well.

"What weve presented is an evolutionary path from the circuit-based network to a combination of circuit-switched and IP," says Don Lemley, Tellabs manager of advanced planning. "Thats a combination that we believe will really handle both types of networks because we believe that while the marketplace will develop toward an IP-based network, there could be years of circuit-switched service ahead of us. So our thrust has been to build a product that bridges that gap, instead of expecting someone to jump over it."

Lemley says a lot of competitors are talking about IP telephony, and a lot have built prototypes. Theres a lot of products that are really based on enterprise networks, but as far as lifeline-type telephony or residential telephony service, the standards are still evolving, and no one really has a product yet that addresses all the issues in the cable market for IP telephony.

"The PacketCable initiative has players on both sides of the fencethose who have been in traditional switch networks as well as those who come from a router/IP background," Lemley says. "Everyone is involved in thatincluding Tellabspretty heavily. But thats very separate from what has to happen in the transport networks. In that area, its still up for grabs."

Tellabs signature product in this space is the Cablespan 2300 universal telephony distribution system, which the company touts as being able to bridge the gap between traditional telephony and the delivery of advanced network services.

The Cablespan 2300 system encompasses a scalable family of access units designed to cost-effectively serve single-family homes, shared tenant/multiple dwelling units (MDUs) and business locations. The system provides direct high-speed data connectivity to serve applications including residential access to the Internet, small office/home office (SOHO), corporate intranet connectivity and remote office/branch office (ROBO).

"The ability to offer IP-type services as well as switch-type services is the biggest differentiating factor of this product," Lemley says. "If you look at some of the other competitors that have built switch-service-type products, they have grafted on some sort of a data product that is separate but works together, so to speak. What we have today is a data service called ExpressPath that allows us to use the same modem, the same bandwidth to provide an Ethernet data service to our customers and to provide switched-circuit telephony. Basically all of the competitors require a separate cable data modem."

Minnetonka, Minn.-based ADC Telecommunications Inc. launched June 7 a range of NewNet SS7-IP gateway products to help operators solve switch and trunk congestion from the demand for IP-based applications and services.

This addition to ADCs NewNet product line reflects the need among carriers and service providers to find cost-effective ways of increasing the bandwidth of their networks, as the routers that form the backbone of the Internet network become bottlenecks in handling traffic.

ADC also is expanding its Metrica/NPR product to provide carriers with an IP performance monitoring tool to measure usage of application servers, modem access and router traffic on internal communications networks. This new Metrica/SLA product offers carriers the capability to report on conformance to service level agreements (SLAs) for any service, including IP-based services given data availability.

Announcements such as these make Glen Skrivseth, ADC technical marketing manager, say the cable telephony industry is progressing right on course.

"Youve got deployment from the local loop, which isnt progressing too fast, but the back end or the backbone is progressing a lot faster, just because they can manage the quality of service (QoS) issues," Skrivseth says.

ADCs main telephony product is Homeworx, a transport system that integrates voice and high-speed data in a single common platform, based on orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) technology.

The Homeworx platform includes a host digital terminal (HDT) located at the headend and integrated services units for placement at or near the customer premises, depending on whether it is serving an individual residence or MDU.

The Homeworx HFC platform accommodates delivery of services such as telephony and Internet connectivity, while providing expansion for future interactive services.

"The other thing that weve been showing at shows puts the IP residential access gateway capability in the IP/ISU right in the home," Skrivseth says. "Its basically packetizing right in-house. Instead of going into a switch, youre going into some other conversion product. Were doing a conversion process right at the local loop, so youre actually taking a whole switch thats no longer required at all."

Morristown, N.J.-based Telcordia Technologies (formerly Bellcore) got its biggest cable telephony boost back on March 29 when it partnered with Horsham, Pa.-based General Instrument Corp. to develop next generation network IP telephony products for cable providers.

The companies set out to promote open, standards-based telephony architectures for next generation packet-based networks focused on enabling cable operators to deploy complete and cost-effective IP telephony solutions.

Three months into the partnership, visible signs of progress are evident in the form of lab trials of completed phone calls, says Scott Davidson, Telcordia executive director for VoIP product development.

"One of the things were stressing with our product is we support open protocols and open standards," Davidson says. "What that allows us to do is work with any number of vendors. Were in the process of deploying our software with Groupe Vidéotrona cable company in Quebecand with other manufacturers boxes, specifically Ciscos."

If all goes well with the Vidéotron deployment, the products will generally be available in August.

Turning to the industry in general, tremendous progress has been made on industry-wide standards, Davidson says.

"A while ago, there wasnt much out there that would allow us to deliver the range of features and provide the scalability that we thought was needed for these products," Davidson says. "So we worked with Cisco and Level 3 to develop what turned into the MGCP (media gateway control protocol). That has solidified things a little bit. Its no longer just a standard, its a key element of cable telephony. There are many vendors who are implementing MGCP."

QoS is almost no longer an issue, Davidson says. "We measure quality of service two ways. We look at signaling, which is how long it takes to set up calls. When you pick up a phone, you expect a dial tone right away, and when you dial you expect the phone to ring on the other end within a reasonable amount of time. In that regard, we think things are right on time with the kind of performance and latencies that we require.

"The other aspect is voice quality," Davidson continues. "The voice quality were seeing is just excellent. Most people cant tell the difference between normal calls and our voice over IP."

Scalability is a huge factor in the success of a cable telephony product, Davidson says.

"We see some of the companies that are interested in these products are starting fairly small, so they may be cable companies or what we call greenfield carriers that are getting in to the business," Davidson says. "Theyre going to want to start small and scale into very large numbers. Our product architecture allows us to start at a reasonably low entry point and then scale into a pretty much unlimited level.

"The second area is that were putting a really solid infrastructure in place, and that means Im supporting all the capabilities, not just the bells and whistles. By that I mean local number portability, 911 service, things like that."

Davidson says the publics mass adoption of cable telephony still may be several years off, as people get used to the whole Internet space.

"I think its a little early for them to realize what the real benefit of this product will be," Davidson says. "What theyre going to need to see are some real pricing breaks, and that will come in the form of bundled services from the providers, or really interesting new applications that they can have access to. I think theres work to be done before the general public cares about this in a big way, but in terms of the technology, I think it is definitely ready for prime-time."

ADC Telecommunications Inc.
Minnetonka, MN 55343

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Bottom Line

IP Telephony Solutions

As Internet protocol (IP) telephony over cable develops, competition for the small but growing market is heating up. Here follows a taste of what Lucent, Arris Interactive, Tellabs, ADC, and Telcordia are doing.

Lucent Technologies CableConnect Solutions include hardware and software for cable networks and homes and businesses, along with network design, installation and management services.

Arris Interactives PacketPort is a carrier-grade, outdoor-hardened version of the companys Voice Port, which includes Ethernet connection. Operators who already have Arris Cornerstone Voice Ports wouldnt need to replace them.

Tellabs Cablespan 2300 universal telephony distribution system is intended to bridge the gap between traditional telephony and advanced network services, encompassing a scalable family of access units to serve single-family homes, multiple dwelling units (MDUs) and businesses.

ADCs NewNet SS7-IP gateway products are intended to help operators solve switch and trunk congestion from the demand for IP-based applications and services by letting providers cost-effectively increase bandwidth.

Telcordia Technologies (formerly Bellcore) has partnered with General Instrument to develop next generation network IP telephony products. The companies set out to promote open, standards-based telephony focused on helping operators deploy complete and cost-effective IP telephony solutions.

Evan Bass is editor of sister publication "CTI News." He can be reached at , ext. 2205.