NexTone stretches out session controller role

NexTone Communications is fighting back against the expanding role of the softswitch. In the face of increasing pressure from softswitch vendors who think they can subsume most of the capabilities of session controller, NexTone today is launching a suite of advanced session control capabilities that let carriers route, manage and control real time traffic over IP networks.

The FlexControl application suite includes FlexRoute (routing), FlexPolicy (managing) and FlexPeer (control). The idea is to stretch the concept of session controllers beyond providing border control, said Dan Dearing, vice president of marketing for NexTone.

"A lot of vendors focus just on handing off the network," he said. "Our view of the world is a little more comprehensive."

FlexRoute, for instance, abstracts route policy from call signaling and lets a single policy database for use with all voice over IP endpoints. Among the potential applications: time of day, class of service and specialized routing. By bringing in such capabilities, carriers also can relieve some of the role that many anticipated would be taken on by the multi-protocol label switching (MPLS) routers in the core.

"In the next 18 months some of the functions of the session controller could be subsumed by an MPLS router," Dearing said. "The trade off is you see a performance degradation in the router."

So far, NexTone has had its greatest successes with IP carrier accounts such as ITXC. However, according to Dearing, incumbents such as the RBOCs and big three IXCs are starting to move toward using session controllers. Their current emphasis, though, is on IP-enabling their existing infrastructure.

"It’s a little more complicated and they’re a little slower to adopt the product," he said.