Multiservice is the word: Lucent rolls out voice over ATM

In a move to further multiservice products and offer more asynchronous transfer mode bandwidth, Lucent Technologies announced at ComNet that Pensat International Communications Inc. would be the first to deploy the new PacketStar AC 120 4.0 access concentrator, which provides voice over ATM on Lucent's global network.

"The money is still in voice," said Thomas Goodwin, Lucent's senior director of marketing for carrier networks and data networking systems. "We generate revenue on voice and grow data [for the future]."

According to Goodwin, the 4.0 release of the PacketStar AC 60 and AC 120 will reduce hardware expense by offering "any service, any channel, any port" functionality on enhanced DS-1/E-1 (1.54 Mb/s) modules. The units also support the new Digital Signal Processor 2 high-density voice server module. The DSP2 supports 128 DS-0 (64 kb/s) channels of voice compression using 32 DSP processors.

The enhanced DS-1/E-1 modules enable the access concentrators to support services such as ATM, frame relay and circuit emulation.

Today, the AC 120's strong voice-processing features will allow us to provide toll-quality voice, while letting us maximize the utilization of bandwidth," said Phillip Verruto, president of Pensat. "Tomorrow, the AC 120's multiservice capabilities will give us the flexibility and scalability we need to meet voice, data and video needs."

Pensat, a facilities-based interexchange carrier, was formed to create the Global Network Consortium, a conglomerate of foreign telephone companies assembled in a worldwide network to provide telecom services.

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