Markets, shmarkets

Vendors that attend pulver.com's Voice On the Net conferences have bet their houses on next generation networks. They aren't about to fold because of a little economic downturn.

IPeria, Natural MicroSystems and Telcordia Technologies announced solutions and successes last week, indicating that hope and momentum in the voice over IP (VoIP) space may fade less abruptly than the capital market that feeds it.

IPeria said its voiceXML solution is the first commercially available voiceXML business voice messaging application.

VoiceXML is a standards-based extension to extensible markup language that helps developers deploy Web and voice applications.

IPeria recently completed a trial with TalkingNets, a Wilmington N.C.-based telephony application service provider, and made its product generally available.

“The fundamental problem for carriers is their service has been commoditized. Do you care whom you get your long distance from? That's a wonderful thing for the end user but not for the carrier,” said Stevan Vigneaux, vice president of corporate marketing for IPeria.

To help make voice more profitable, IPeria's software platform delivers brandable voice applications on IP and public-switched networks.

TalkingNets plans to integrate IPeria's voice messaging application with other SIP-based applications and devices in its IP-based voice network, using IPeria's ActivEdge enhanced communications systems software. IPeria's solution also supports session initiation protocol and manages port usage more efficiently.

IPeria also unveiled its instant reservationless conferencing solution, a result of its partnership with Voyant Technologies.

Telcordia's latest release of its Call Agent Class 5 softswitch is designed around scalability. The key feature in the new release is a single-rack system that offers emerging carriers affordable entry into the VoIP and voice over asynchronous transfer mode markets.

“This is the year of limited dollars, and we wanted to offer a system that was more palatable to CLECs,” said Peter Schorsch, director of marketing for next generation network solution at Telcordia.

The system supports 200,000 local lines and is upgradable to 500,000 lines. The new release also introduces new Centrex features such as extension dialing and additional star code features, initial media gateway control protocol support and SIP-based application interfaces.

“The Call Agent isn't designed around SIP, but you do have to implement it,” Schorsch said.

Natural MicroSystems provided its own migration path to Webley Systems. Webley will deploy Natural Microsystems' Convergence Generation 6000C as its IP media server technology, while transitioning its voice-activated service feature to an IP-based network.

Webley is a unified communications provider whose product is a natural speech recognition-driven personal assistant. Webley offers a single telephone number for voice, fax and e-mail messages, as well as voice-activated dialing. Natural MicroSystems' products will handle mixed media processing that converts real-time voice into packet streams and interactive voice responses for voice mail.

Natural MicroSystems chairman and CEO Bob Schechter said infrastructure is still required, and new applications are still desired. “Nobody is slowing down. We may be hoarding cash, but [research and development] will continue.”