Network Design Capability
When designing a network, be it for voice or data, it should meet a pre-defined set of performance and coverage requirements. Dimensioning the network to handle the system's traffic requirements economically and in line with QoS needs is also critical to providing a reliable service.
Webecs Consultants Ltd has a wide experience in both voice networks and data networks, including resiliency, signalling, capacity planning and network management. This experience has been gained working in public telecommunications - both with suppliers and operators
Additionally, Webecs has undertaken work for companies looking to converge their voice and data networks, and has written a paper in 2002 on the subject of converged networking in the PSTN. Today, many of the issues with VoIP convergence have been dealt with by manufacturers such as Cisco, and the technology is a reality for both telco carriers and end users alike. Webecs can offer clear advice on the way forward for your business in this or related areas.
A summary of the paper on network convergence is provided below.
The traditional Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) is a circuit switched network. Circuit switching ensures that the callers experience reliable, consistent quality of service. However, it also uses network resources inefficiently because usually only one or two channels (in a 30 channel system) carries information at any one time, and only limited compression can be applied before quality degradation. Unlike PSTN, the internet is a packet based network and, by the use of “packetizing” data, it uses network resources much more efficiently. It is able to support variable amounts of access bandwidth – allowing for delivery of broadband services. The flexible and efficient nature of the internet means that it would be desirable to carry all forms of traffic over it. However, until recently, Internet Protocol (IP) has not been a suitable medium for telephony traffic, as it does not support anything beyond “best efforts” or understand the system of signalling used in the traditional PSTN
The limitations of IP are being overcome by new switches, called softswitches. Both the ATM and IP transport approaches will co-exist and have their roles in different parts of the network. ATM transport today provides a higher degree of service availability, but has its own limitations. But as IP transport improves, and in terms of new applications, it will have the upper hand
Softswitches have something to offer for each point but they need to mature further before they can displace traditional telco engineering. The large carriers have been reluctant to deploy softswitches as a complete replacement to the local exchange at present, particularly due to their limitations in a class 5 environment, which requires the continuous control of a service session throughout its duration. There is more desire today to implement softswitches in a Class 4 transit level (eg for internet dial up off-load), where call waiting, calling line identification and the generation of billing records are often not a requirement. However, as the softswitch develops and SLA’s improve - and the traditional Class 5 switches require replacement, there will be a natural tendency to grow the softswitch “to the network edge”. A softswitch based network will provide considerable benefits to both new and incumbent carriers. There are cost savings that can be made by carriers through a packet based multimedia telephony service, although the cost of systems integration work with legacy support systems is significant. A rigid adherence to the old TDM structure will not lead to efficient engineering. Reliability and scalability remain problematic for standalone systems, many of which are based on Windows NT which does not offer as much reliability as is needed for carrier class applications
Today’s Telecommunications needs will be served increasingly by the use of these next generation networks comprising media gateways and softswitches. But the move to an IP based network will also enable carriers to create and deliver new services quicker, as the new network uses open application software, is centrally controlled, and does not require a full upgrade to individual switches on the network before a new service is launched. It becomes easier to add new services to the network, and customise services to particular markets. As the IP telephony services market shifts toward the higher revenue business market, quality of service is clearly emerging as one of the most important issues affecting the rate of deployment. Carriers and other service providers are increasingly able to provide some level of service quality guarantees - primarily concerning data communications network parameters. While the single most important component to quality of VoIP service is voice quality, a high quality service would also include integrated provisioning, monitoring, and audit reporting.
Read more from our telecom papers link on the webecs.co.uk site.
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