SIP Gets Down to Business

Protocol Helps Flatten Networks, Enables New Applications

Judging from SUPERCOMM, which took place in June in Atlanta, that small scale is poised to become large. There was a groundswell of efforts to flatten service provider networks and pave the way for SIP applications targeted at lowering operating and capital expenditures.

MCI, for example, announced its migration to a packet network at SUPERCOMM, the first step in launching new revenue-creating SIP applications, the end game to the carrier’s convergence strategy, says Ricky Price, MCI’s vice president of global network engineering. MCI is transitioning its voice network to a common IP core using Nortel Networks Inc.’s Succession softswitches and Passport packet voice gateways.

The carrier expects to migrate 25 percent of its long-distance voice traffic to IP by the end of the year, 50 percent by 2004 and all of it by 2005. It began deploying Nortel’s equipment in January.

The move will enable MCI to flatten its network and carry all applications and media on one IP pipe. This simplification will allow the company to become more efficient and will save 20 percent to 30 percent in operational expenditures, Nortel says. Also, the business benefits of simplified application deployment will make MCI more competitive.

A signaling technology developed by the Internet Engineering Task Force, SIP’s appeal lies in its ability to enable revenue-enhancing, enterprise-ready phone, video conferencing, instant messaging or other IP-based applications that can be rolled out by service providers quickly, while gaining economies of scale across a single infrastructure.

“A key strength is [SIP’s] flexibility in allowing a rapid time to market,” says Frost & Sullivan industry analyst Jon Arnold. “Service providers can no longer afford to wait 12 to 18 months to roll out new services, and SIP provides the means to be more responsive to market forces.”

Accordingly, Ubiquity Software Corp. took the wraps off its new SIP application partner program, an initiative to entice third-party Java developers to write applications based on Ubiquity’s SIP Application Server and an open-standards service creation environment. The third-party applications, powered by Ubiquity, will then be brought to market for service providers.

“There isn’t a single killer app,” explains Jeff Liebl, vice president of marketing and product management. “There is a demand for more nichebased apps that can be fulfilled if there is a way to cost-effectively develop and deploy them, and this is a way to do that.”

Applications already available include a hosted key system, call center applications, video conferencing and “infotainment” services.

Liebl notes, Ubiquity’s developer-friendly SIP technology, which lacks the proprietary interfaces telecom operators traditionally have dealt with, allows rapid service creation and delivery with a time to market of weeks instead of months.

Siemens Information and Communication Networks Inc. released its LifeWorks initiative at the show, a move to unlock information from the separate silos of domains and protocols native to specific types of networks (cellular, PSTN, VPN, WAN, etc.), and use open standards to create a single approach to all media, for a unified domain and a unified user experience.

The end result? Support for SIP-based application initiatives that are simple to deploy. The Siemens solution lifts the artificial boundaries today’s technologies impose. The solution integrates communication among home offices, small offices, branch offices, regional offices and headquarters while including Centrex-type functionality, says Mark Howell, manager of strategic offer management at Siemens ICN.

“This is a unification of the user experience that includes presence and availability, which acknowledges that work and life sometimes overlap,” he explains. “We’re taking our core product areas of call control, access and transport and focusing them on twin goals of enriching the user experience and creating new revenue for carriers.”

The promise of SIP tickles the fancy of analysts, vendors and service providers alike, and the SUPERCOMM buzz may indicate it is ready for prime time.

“Although H.323 is the dominant signaling protocol, carriers recognize that SIP is the route to enhanced services. Over the last year, momentum has clearly been building for this protocol, starting with Windows XP, then closer to home by being adopted by both the wireless and cable standards bodies,” explains Arnold. “Deployments are still on a small scale, but vendors that pass on SIP today will be at a competitive disadvantage.’’ In a 2002 study, Frost & Sullivan estimates SIP will help total voice over packet equipment revenue to grow to $11.9 billion by 2006.

Share this article: Email, Slashdot, Digg, Del.icio.us, Yahoo!MyWeb, Windows Live Favorites, Furl
Add this article feed to: RSS, My Yahoo, Newsgator, Bloglines