Voice 2.0 parade carries on

The never-ending search to find the right formula to do for apps on voice-over-IP and carrier networks what the iPhone (and maybe now the Droid) has done for mobile networks continues unabated. In this episode, we hear from BroadSoft, Metaswitch, Veraz and others …

The prize is obvious, but the hunt has been treacherous.

Most recently, VoIP softswitch vendor BroadSoft made yet another stab in this direction, unveiling a new platform dubbed BroadSoft Marketplace that will let its customers build their own custom application stores. The BroadSoft-enabled stores would get full service provider branding and include BroadSoft and third-party apps in areas such as call management and Web 2.0/social media — apps built using the open application programming interfaces (APIs) the vendor released and has been touting for several years now.

MetaSwitch, meanwhile, recently repositioned its MetaSphere application platform. Rather than just leveraging the server for new service creation, the MetaSphere platform is now also serving as the way it delivers legacy, Class 5-type features. That makes MetaSphere in some ways less interesting (it's not about shiny new services) but also more important as well (it's now part of the vendor's core environment, delivering core features — not something out on the periphery).

Skeptics remain. “There's always been a lot of interest in brokers and open APIs and Web-2.0-meets-telco stuff,” said Gus Elmer, director of marketing for Veraz Networks. “But our experience has been that it makes for fantastic demos and tremendous lab [projects], but they never deploy it. You get sucked into an endless lab demo loop.”

That skepticism hasn't stopped more Web-oriented players from persisting. Google, for one, keeps moving its Google Voice service forward, recently revealing the eight telecom companies required to make it work — which it followed up by buying a ninth, Gizmo5, which would help it terminate PSTN calls.

Read more about another aspect of the “open” debate in telecom in “NSN: TV must be open to be cool” at our service delivery one-stop. ▸ TelephonyOnline.com/service_delivery