Transition of voice traffic to Internet protocol (IP) is expected to take years, but one company, Performance Technologies of Rochester, N.Y., already has applied IP technology to underlying Signaling System-7 (SS-7) control network. Company’s SEGway product is SS-7 to IP internetworking device that enables wireline and wireless carriers to offload SS-7 traffic to shared packet networks rather than use dedicated circuit for each link. Link Concentrator, 2nd product due next month, reduces need to add links to Signal Transfer Points (STPs) by concentrating SS-7 traffic onto fewer shared IP links. Both products use Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) Stream Control Transmission Protocol (SCTP) to transport SS-7 messages over IP networks with same reliability as dedicated links, company said. Developed specifically for signaling data, SCTP is transport protocol operating on top of IP -- at best potentially unreliable connectionless packet service. SEGway product is transparent to SS-7 network and messages are transported without need for new SS- 7 point codes (addresses) or network reconfiguration upon installation, company said.
It’s “too simplistic” to question whether FCC Chmn. Powell supports telecom competition just because he also advocates deregulation where appropriate, he said in interview with Communications Daily. “Of course we favor competition,” he said. “The policy of the entire country is to favor competition.” What has been misunderstood is more “subtle” question of when intervention is right and when it isn’t, he said. Powell said he didn’t believe in jumping too quickly into new regulations or keeping old ones that no longer are necessary. Telecom Act requires FCC to review regulations periodically and determine whether they still are appropriate, so this isn’t new concept, he said: “There are appropriate places for regulation, but they should be carefully scrutinized and one should be hesitant to interfere with those operations without clear and demonstrable reasons for doing so.”