IP or ATM: Multiservice Switching Forum's Innovative Architecture Embraces Both. MSF Announces Strong Progress on Voice Over ATM and Voice Over IP - Industry Trend or Event

Cambridge Telcom Report, August 2, 1999

The Multiservice Switching Forum (MSF) Tuesday announced that they have significantly surpassed their goals for organizational growth and progress toward defining an architecture which will allow multiple services to be supported by a single network. The new network architecture is based on IP and ATM, and supports other data, video and voice services. Significant progress has already been made on the development of architecture, interface and protocol specifications for switches handling Voice over IP(VoIP) and Voice over ATM(VoATM). The group expects to complete the multiservice network architecture specification by year end.

MSF Grows Rapidly, Achieves Impressive Results

The speed at which the Multiservice Switching Forum is moving forward mirrors the pace of the industry. Founded in November 1998 with a goal of signing 30 member companies, the organization now counts 55 member companies, including carriers and telecom equipment manufacturers. A list of members may be found on the MSF Web site at http://www.msforum.org.

The organization's technical committee working groups (Switch Control, Architecture and Media) have met four times in six months, with over 90 representatives present at each meeting. The results include several formal "liaison" documents now circulating between the MSF and other industry groups involved in the development of telecom standards, including The Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) Forum, Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), International Telecommunications Union (ITU) and the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI). The MSF is committed to adopting and building on the strong work being accomplished by other standards organizations, as it focuses on its core mission of creating a modular, open-architecture model for support of multi-service switching.

New Open Architecture Will Allow Telecom Growth to Parallel Computer Growth

"We believe that the telecom industry can benefit from the same types of quantum leaps forward that the IT industry has been undergoing over the last few years," noted Mr. Morgan Littlewood, President of the Multiservice Switching Forum. He continued, "One of the reasons that the computer industry has surged forward so rapidly is that there are very well-defined interoperability standards for interfaces and protocols. Each company can focus on developing the hardware and software pieces that they do best, without having to re-engineer large parts of the network with each new product. This improves product time to market."

When open architecture specifications are in place, carriers and network operators also benefit. They can move forward much more confidently and quickly with their network expansions, knowing that the equipment they buy today will be compatible with other vendors' newly released products tomorrow -- and next year.

"The goal of MSF is to develop multiservice switching with both IP and ATM based services," explains Ken Coit, VP of MSF. "ATM has features already defined that are necessary to support a robust, carrier-class multiservice environment. At the same time, the market for IP services is growing enormously and is fueled by the ability to reach the end user's PC," adds Mr. Coit.

The MSF strategy of supporting ATM and IP is supported by industry marketing consultants. Dataquest notes that ATM has gained widespread market acceptance and forecasts continued strong growth in the ATM market. The Yankee Group concurs, forecasting that the ATM switch market will experience a compound annual growth rate of 36% over the next five years. The growth of the Internet has clearly secured the importance of IP in the industry.

Karen Hold, Publisher of The ATM Report and ATMWORLD magazine, stated "Carriers and network operators want to prepare for the new opportunities that IP growth will surely create over the next few years, but at the same time, carriers must provide the quality and selection of new services demanded by customers today. We believe the work the MSF is doing to support both goals is critical to carriers' long-term investments in network infrastructure. In the end, we expect the adoption of open standards to result in greater choice of equipment, at lower costs."

The forum members believe that the switching equipment sold in the future must provide open choices for network operators. The industry is moving so fast that it can be risky to lock into a single-vendor, proprietary solution for network infrastructure. By developing open architecture that supports interoperability of telecom equipment, the Company helps to create an environment where carriers and network operators can select the best of breed for each type of telecom equipment.

For more information about the work of the Multiservice Switching Forum, or to find out about joining, contact the Company at 510-608-3990 or http://www.msforum.org.