The intelligent network (r)evolution: Lucent takes lead at IN Forum

Lucent Technologies assumed a leadership role in the intelligent network arena last week in Miami as Curtis Holmes, vice president of communications software for the intelligent network unit at Lucent, became the first non-carrier chairman of the IN World Forum. The company also launched two intelligent network products that will capitalize on the convergence of IP and intelligent network technologies.

The intelligent network's future calls for an evolution and revolution focused on service creation, Holmes said. "We're taking traditional [intelligent network] and leveraging it into enhanced service," he said. "Yes, you need bandwidth, but you only need bandwidth if you have the services to run on it."

Lucent's new enhanced media resource server (eMRS) and enhanced control server (eCS), are designed for creating services. The eMRS provides speech-enabled calling services. The eCS is a next generation service control point (SCP) that enables faster service creation by centralizing the service logic and the subscriber data.

"We believe the combination of voice, data and smart end points is evolutionary. We want to be well-positioned for them all," Holmes said.

The eMRS' primary component is a compact PCI speech processing board. The board supports multiple languages and continuous speech recognition. It scales from a few channels to more than 100 channels.

Lucent also announced an intelligent network alliance, made up of members that provide products that add to the capabilities of eMRS. Berkeley, Calif.-based Adax protects processor capacity and enables the creation of SS7 services. Brooktrout Technology provides messaging resources for voice, fax and voice over IP through its TR1000 CompactPCI card. The Real Speak software solution from Lernout and Hauspie provides speech recognition capabilities that can control Microsoft Windows applications, and another speech recognition product from Nuance adds voice authentication.

Intel's Pentium III processors power the boards from RadiSys that support the platform on which all these products are combined. The hardware will support up to 1344 ports per unit; the system has four units.

"From a service point of view, the suite is an enabler. We're not selling a box," said Houck Reed, senior product manager of Lucent's intelligent business unit. The eMRS will be available in the second or third quarter.

Lucent added several features to the new eCS version. It is packet-enabled and supports industry standard interfaces such as transaction capability application part (TCAP) over IP. The new eCS has a hardware platform from Compaq Computer, which makes the platform more creditable through a hot-standby configuration.

"People are accustomed to a certain level of quality of service today," said Scott Nichols, SCP product manager of Lucent's intelligent business unit. "It is essential that they get that going forward. The new hardware takes us from a four-nines reliability to six nines."

For some, that's not enough. "The Compaq hardware platform is more robust and reliable. It's a good fit, but a hot standby is still a hot standby where you have a small amount of lag during a switchover," said Lisa Pierce, director of telecom services and carrier analysis for Giga Information Group.

By comparison, signaling transfer points in a pure SS7 network work in a live, shared environment where 50% of the traffic routes to either unit, which adds another layer of reliability.

The platform also will support E-1 functionality for international application beginning in June. "It's also very scalable. When you're a carrier and you worry about being ready to handle the signaling requirements for next generation applications, having something that scales is important," Pierce said.

The system boasts a larger database, which can sort call handling and routing information for services that are executed by switch points. "Assuming plans to handle 8000 transactions per second in June come to fruition, it's a step in the right direction," Pierce added.