April 2001

Offload: The Spirit Of Change

BY KEVIN MAYER

Design, at its best, relates environments to living processes, including processes that define service providers. These processes may be stifled or invigorated, depending on whether our environments -- specifically, our networking environments -- harmonize with our activities. Disharmony, such as that accompanying occlusion or obstruction, augurs stasis and ill luck.

Disharmony is all too evident among service providers, for while their external environments have changed, their internal environments -- their network infrastructures -- often have not. The networks of telephony service providers were designed to accommodate relatively brief phone calls, averaging about four minutes. Longer call times, averaging about 20 minutes, burden legacy switches, congest legacy networks, and undermine the ability of service providers to deliver even basic services.

Sounds grim. But there may be an alternative to a grim "holding on." To consider this alternative, however, we may need to think differently about design. I've borrowed a couple of ideas from the Feng Shui tradition. Feng Shui, which originated in China, is an approach to interior design that emphasizes how well-being may be enhanced through modifications of layout and the re-orientation of homes and workplaces. The approach may apply to network infrastructure as well.

In Feng Shui, we hear how clutter and debris can constrict vital energies. We also learn that the effective arrangement of rooms, furniture, and household objects can facilitate the flow and movement and instill, if subconsciously, a sense of balance and ease. Moreover, clearing away clutter and opening up space invites new possibilities, first in the imagination, and then in reality.

What does this have to do with telephony and enhanced voice/data services? If we characterize disruptive calling patterns as a kind of network clutter, we can imagine how clearing this clutter might not only restore balance, but also invite new possibilities in the realm of enhanced services. And the clutter-clearing application, for many service providers, may well be Internet offload.

Internet offload applications allow service providers to segregate voice traffic and data traffic, the better to shunt data traffic to data networks, leaving legacy infrastructure free to do what it does best -- handling voice calls. Thus, dial-up Internet calls, with their long hold times and erratic time-of-day patterns, needn't burden a service provider's Class 5 switch. Furthermore, Internet offload applications, which are enabled by packet-based equipment, allow service providers to cap their investments in circuit-switched equipment. Typically, the packet-based equipment has a much smaller footprint, conserving co-location space, reducing clutter in the physical realm, and not just in the abstract, traffic management realm.

Finally, many Internet offload solutions offer migration paths to more elaborate next-generation infrastructures, to more ambitious enhanced services, as suggested by several of the developments described in this section.

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Q & A With Convergent Networks, Tachion, Rapid5, And General Bandwidth

Q: Could you characterize the kinds of service providers now implementing (or who will soon implement) Internet offload solutions?

We see service providers of all sizes and backgrounds deploy Internet offload solutions. Rather than ILEC vs. CLEC or large vs. small, the breakdown tends to fall more along the lines of existing network vs. greenfield service provider. A next-generation packet solution allows those carriers who already have a Class 5 solution deployed to be able to cap and protect their Class 5 investment and make their network more efficient by diverting traffic from their existing switch. With a greenfield service provider who is looking to launch services, a packet-based Internet offload solution represents a way to get to market quickly, at a cost far less than a Class 5 solution, and begin to realize revenues. The solution also provides a migration path to offering advanced services, including VoDSL and a softswitch-based Class 5 feature set. Internet offload helps level the playing field for new carriers to be able to compete with existing carriers. 
-- Carl Baptiste, Convergent Networks (www.convergentnet.com)

Q: Could you describe Internet offloads composite applications?

Internet offload is a general term that traditionally refers to two different but related applications: 1. Class 5 central office exhaust, and 2. IMT-to-PRI conversion. 

Class 5 exhaust is a problem that primarily affects incumbent service providers (ILECs, PTTs, large established CLECs). Internet dial-up calls that traverse the PSTN are circuit-switched through local end-office Class 5 switches. While optimized for voice applications (average 3 minute call duration) Class 5 switches are not optimized for data calls (average 30 minute call duration). A recent new type of communications networking system sometimes know as mediation devices or media gateways, allow service providers to remove this traffic from the costly Class 5 switches and move them onto these less expensive specialized systems.

IMT-to-PRI conversion is an application that significantly reduces an ISPs networking costs. CLECs are using these new IMT/PRI switches to purchase inter-machine trunks (IMTs) from the ILEC, which are readily available and reasonably priced, and convert them to PRIs for delivery to the ISPs for their dial-up traffic. Some ISPs are getting CLEC certifications themselves so that they can purchase their own mediation switches and take control of their own network costs by buying IMTs directly from the ILEC, circumventing the CLEC. Mediation switches typically pay for themselves in 9 to 12 months.
-- Jeff Matros, President & CEO, Tachion Networks (www.tachion.com)

Q: Do different classes of service providers express different or similar short-term/long-term goals?  Do broadband access deployments complement offload solutions?

Existing carriers benefit by offloading the strain from their existing Class 5 solution set, maximizing their investment. Greenfield carriers are able to come to market more quickly by deploying a packet-based solution. Both groups benefit from the long-term potential of packet-based solutions, that is, being able to rapidly deploy advanced voice/data services, such as next-generation Centrex, VoDSL, or unified communications. Broadband access networks based on softswitch technology have the added benefit of preparing service providers to offer a host of new, next-generation services that have not yet even been thought of. 
-- Carl Baptiste, Convergent Networks

In answer to your first question, the answer is yes; there is a clear difference in approach between incumbent and competitive providers. We have clearly aimed our offering at the ILECs and very large CLECs and their needs and direction.

Addressing your second question, broadband solutions offer an alternative to dial-up Internet access, but the penetration of broadband remains too limited to meaningfully reduce the impact of dial-up traffic. And, even if you have broadband at home, you still end up using dial-up connections when you travel -- at least you will for the foreseeable future. Currently dial-up is the only ubiquitous form of Internet access. Weve talked to ILECs who have spent $1 billion last year on switch upgrades, without adding any substantial number of new subscriber lines. Thats a pretty sobering number, and an important indicator of the magnitude of the offload issue. 
-- Fred Ellefson, Vice President, Marketing, Rapid5 Networks (www.rapid5.com)

Q: Could you cite advantages specific to your solution?

Convergent Networks ICS2000 broadband switch is an extremely dense solution for Internet offload, packing more that 100,000 DS0s into a standard 7-foot telco bay. Additionally, by interconnecting up to 20 geographically distributed ICS2000s through a single ATM core switch, carriers can support hundreds of thousands of simultaneous users. Earlier this year, Global NAPs, a Massachusetts-based CLEC, made the industrys first transition from a circuit switch-based network to a packet switch-based network. The new packet-based network provides Global NAPs four times the capacity at one-tenth the cost, and occupies one-tenth the central office space of its former circuit-based network.
-- Carl Baptiste, Convergent Networks

General Bandwidths G6 is fully NEBS Level 3 certified, without exception. Most of the competing solutions do not meet these stringent standards, which are basic requirements to be deployed in a carriers network. They include size and power limitations, and require that the product be manufactured from the ground up to meet these specifications. General Bandwidth also has a highly scalable backplane, at 38.4 Gbps, expandable to 60 Gbps. The G6 also supports both ATM and IP, which allows it to play a larger role in the service providers migration to next-generation voice technologies.
-- General Bandwidth (www.generalbandwidth.com)

Our key differentiator is our focus on large carrier networks. 1. We provide offload where it counts, on the line (subscriber) side of the Class 5 switch -- before the Internet traffic hits the first Class 5 switch. Most competing solutions offload traffic on the trunk side of the Class 5 switch, in the core of the network. 2. Our platform supports multiple services. In addition to supporting Internet offload, it also supports voice offload, and other data services. 3. We are in the process of completing Telcordias OSMINE program which lets us connect our equipment directly to the ILECs back-office systems. 4. Seven 9s reliability, certified by Telcordia.
-- Fred Ellefson, Vice President, Marketing, Rapid5 Networks

The FUSION 5000 is a standards-based platform that supports voice/data over ATM, DSL, and TDM, features SS7 signaling, and uses SIP for internetworking with third-party feature and application servers. The FUSION 5000 does not need external complimentary platforms for packetized voice and converged voice/data. All voice and data can be supported and switched within the product due to the FUSION 5000s dual packet/circuit switching matrices with integrated call control. It is, in essence, an entire central office in a single platform or, as we like to say in-house, the FUSION 5000 has a softswitch inside (to politely pay homage to Intels marketing slogan).
-- Jeff Matros, President & CEO, Tachion Networks

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