VoIP is driving the adoption of NGN

   along with broadband, IP-VPN, triple-play, fixed-mobile convergence and FTTH (fiber to the home) are essentially all signposts along different routes to the next-generation network, or NGN.

These are more than just new technologies available to operators. Underlying all of them is a shift in the way the telecom industry adopts technology and delivers services over its networks. Put another way, if telecom networks in the 1980s and 90s were all about "bigger, faster, better", the future is the less-catchy refrain of "more efficient, cheaper to run, faster to market".

The intellectual argument for   an all-IP core is well-known. An operator with a single, converged IP network can deliver seamless convergent services. IP means lower capex costs and considerably lower OPEX. Just as important, an open, standards-based platform means service providers can introduce products much more quickly into the market and respond more rapidly to customer demands.

For start-up carriers, like Yahoo! BB or the US VoIP cable company Vonage, all-IP is a no-brainer. For incumbent carriers it’s a dilemma. How and when do they take the jump?

Everyone agrees that NGN is the ultimate seamless multiservice network platform. Yet everyone also agrees it is going to take some time.

But what we can now see is that the deployment of broadband, and in particular xDSL, which predominates outside North America, has acted as an accelerant in the drive to NGN. Broadband is the enabler of VoIP, which in turn means mass deployment of IP in the core and "triple-play" and ultimately even a converged fixed-wireless platform.

Right now it is VoIP that is in play. It certainly has the buzz. "Without any doubt, VoIP represents a big threat to PSTN operators," said an Ovum research note. "In fact, a threat that is comparable to or even greater than mobile substitution."

It is a threat only for those carriers slow to capitalize on VoIP and NGN, believes C21 Communications, exclusive provider in the UK and Ireland of Topex NGN and Fixed to Mobile Convergence portfolio. The addressable market for NGN services alone is estimated to be in excess of €38 billion over the next five years, a report said. But carriers must respond fast to new challenges and this is where   can help.

 

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C21 Communications provides solutions and products designed to reduce the cost of telephony for SoHo and SME businesses, right through to global enterprises.

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