FEATURES
The Right Tool: Next-Gen Data Transport
Architectures
Brian Carr, Motorola Computer Group
Use the right tool for the right job
its just common sense. You get the job done more quickly and with
better results. So whats the right tool for data transport in next-gen
converged networks?
Customers Speak, Is E-Commerce Listening?
Kevin M. Mayer, Editorial Director
Recent studies suggest that e-commerce
is maturing, taking its place as just another retail channel, riding the
same ups and downs as any of the traditional channels. A piece of news
with mixed implications. Perhaps by now some of the lingering fears about
e-commerce are fading. Or perhaps e-commerce is losing momentum. The
studies raise more questions than they answer! But, regardless of whether
e-commerce needs to recapture or maintain or increase its momentum, there
are ways that e-commerce may enhance its appeal. E-commerce may take
advantage of technologies designed to make communications and
self-service, human-computer actions more natural. E-commerce may avail
itself of technologies such as speech recognition and text-to-speech,
encompassing the functionality of interactive voice response and talking
Web voice portals. Then, e-commerce may train its ears to recognize
calls to even greater success.
Voice Application
Networks: A Compelling Alternative To Legacy IVR
(Sidebar)
Jeff Kunins, Tellme Networks
Exploding Signaling Demands? Move SS7 to IP
and Conserve STP Ports
Reg Cable, Performance Technologies
Bandwidth is ample these days, so the
networking world now might focus some attention on the ongoing explosion
in signaling. SS7 signaling traffic can be efficiently shifted onto
lower-cost IP-based networks and concentrated onto fewer, highly utilized
signaling links. By doing so, intelligent new SS7 transport and routing
products can dramatically save network costs.
Internetworking The Future
Ed Wadbrook, 3Com Corporation
Imagine the day when one network will
carry all communications. Do you think its science fiction? Its not.
That day is upon us and Ed Wadbrook explains how internetworking will
users to access and exchange information anytime, anywhere.
The Evolution Of The Next-Gen IP Network
Ayman Ghali and Daniel Geiger, Lucent Technologies
The search for new, profitable
revenue streams and cost efficiencies has shifted focus away from the PSTN
to the next-gen IP network. How can service providers align with the
change? Ayman Ghali and Daniel Geiger explore the options.
Motivating Channels In A Converging Market
Samuel Shapiro and Michael Kelly, Telecommunications Industry
Association
As traditional voice channels are being
challenged by the increasing influence of data buyers in voice decisions,
it is important to develop strategies to motivate new or evolving channels
to provide value-added services. Samuel Shapiro and Michael Kelly look
into this further.
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PUBLISHER'S OUTLOOK
Back To Basics
Rich Tehrani, Publisher
In these uncertain times, many of us
naturally turn inward. We defer ambitious expansion plans, and instead we
concentrate on doing what we do best, and on doing it better, improving
and optimizing processes that we may have taken for granted while we were
preoccupied with engaging if peripheral novelties. Many of us decide were
in a mood to get back to basics, essential and always relevant tasks such
as distribution and marketing. These tasks, in the convergence space, are
especially timely, now that distribution channels have the opportunity to
add value by bridging the growing gap between suppliers and end users, and
since marketing, at least in its public relations dimension, risks
accomplishing little more than adding to an already stupefying din of
white noise.
TOM KEATING'S CC:
Its The Network,
Stupid
Tom Keating, Executive Technology Editor
Performance monitoring network
testing VoIP testing these are all essential for businesses today,
especially since we all depend so much on our corporate networks. This
month Tom Keating discusses some companies that offer these types of
solutions.
REVIEWS
Lernout & Hauspies
Dragon NaturallySpeaking Professional v5.0
alexis
communicationss Enhanced Service Platform
Plantronics
DSP-500
NEWS AND VIEWS
Breaking News
DEPARTMENTS
Analytical Views: The
Voice-Empowered Contact Center
Daniel Miller and Mark Plakias,
The Kelsey Group
Organizations are recognizing the value of voice
interfaces in the contact center the front line of customer contact.
But the adoption of some speech technologies is not taking off as quickly
as providers would like. Daniel Miller and Mark Plakias address some of
the concerns.
At Your Service: SIP Origination And
Termination
Jonathan Rosenberg, dynamicsoft, Inc.
There are several industry and
technology trends that are contributing to the attractiveness and
feasibility of deploying a network to offer origination and termination
services. Jonathan Rosenberg discusses this topic in-depth this month.
eBusiness Solutions: Developing
Portals For E-Business
Karl Walder, eshare communications
This month, Karl Walder discusses the
emerging third generation of portals enterprise portals that provide
for specific vertical focus for a specific set of business processes and
business ecosystem.
Inside Networking: The Three "Lucky Sevens"
Revisited
Tony Rybczynski, Nortel Networks
It's been three and half years (seven Web years) since Tony Rybczynski first started writing this column. The good news is that the network has become an intrinsic part of virtually every business, with the demand for networking still as strong as ever. In his fourth year-end article, Rybczynski looks back on the first piece he wrote in this series.
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