SP-4 - Service Provider Round Table Double Session State of the Industry Frank Estes

State of the Industry 1.Telecom Zombies 2.Softswitches? 3.Hey what about retail? 4.I didn’t make it in Telecom, I am going to try and hype wireless! 5.Routing for dummies 6.Will the real SIP stand up! 7.Kiss

State of the Industry (cont) Telecom Zombies, the living dead, A new phrase coined by the “Washington Post.” Filed Chapter 11 after the bubble, former executives being investigated, same old business model with the latest gadgets, no creativity, no margins, and waiting to die again. Softswitches, PSTN switches are aging and the big 5 (Nortel, Ericsson, Alcatel, Lucent, Cisco) are promoting the softswitch as a replacement. Ideal for RBOC’s LEC’s and major IXC’s. Beware feature sets in development and what really is a softswitch. For IP carriers, a step backwards. The latest line I have heard, “we are a softswitch with a session border control built in,” Or, “eventually, our (insert name) softswitch will do that”

State of the Industry (cont) Hey, What about retail?, the IXC’s and LEC’s have finally realized the game is to move high margin retail traffic into their low cost environments. The big carriers want to replicate “Vonage” and bring any and all retail traffic into their low cost networks. I didn’t make it in Telecom, I am going to try and hype wireless!, many of the hot IP vendors with SIP proxies, border controllers, mega switches were not successful in generating revenue, but really good promote HYPE! Their strategies are retooled and seeking to create buzz in the wireless market.

State of the Industry (cont) Routing for dummies, Multiple systems, protocols, route plans, and scale limitations have made routing important in today’s telecom environment. What is good inside the domain will not work outside the domain. Simple, easy to use Routing engines that can work with multiple protocols, destinations and devices will become the popular new feature in late Will the real SIP stand up!, SIP has been touted as the protocol of the future, yet, it is moving slowly. SIP vendors are building applications for conferencing, voice, video and other neat and cool features. However, these applications are not interoperable, billing has not been resolved, and a simple, usable SIP proxy is non-existent (Would you like UDP or TCP/IP?). Microsoft has its own strategy, the carriers want to reach out to the SIP consumer, and new SIP ITSP’s are forming minor islands of users. Sounds like H323 all over again.

State of the Industry (cont) Kiss, Keep it simple!