Changing the network's core

Communications News, April, 1998 by Ripley Hotch

E-Net's CEO says putting voice over your data network is easy, and can make you a hero.

Rob Veschi, president and CEO of e-Net, a three-year old packet voice company, doesn't back. down from blunt talk or bullies. He really doesn't need to, given that he was a semi-Professional kick-boxer in his native Texas.

But he doesn't believe in provoking fights; that's not the way to win. So in the tussle of putting voice-over-data networks, he says, don't lick them, join them.

Veschi started e-Net to enter the voice-over-packet networks market that has generated so much interest in the last year. Adding telephony to an existing wide area network, he says, saves money and creates a stronger network.

"I just think that people underestimate the expense of maintaining two completely separate infrastructures in the corporate environment," Veschi says. "The money you save in the local exchange and the interexchange is probably a pittance by comparisons to the administrative costs of maintaining completely different infrastructures."

At the same time, he sees no reason for the interface to change. Everyone is used to the telephone. The interface is simple, the dial tone is there, and it works.

"I want to change the core of telecommunications technology while leaving the face the same," he says. "That's why we call what we do data telephone as opposed to voice over IP, voice over ATM, or voice over this, voice over that, because we really don't care what the infrastructure is."

Attempts at packet-based telephony over the Internet have ended up being mostly silly, Veschi says, and people won't use it. Packet voice has been given a bad rap because of inadequate early implementations.

"We had too many people jump into this burgeoning industry, and people are beginning to believe that Internet business applications and telecommunications technology are `toyware," Veschi says. "They pick a free copy of some Internet telephony software and they sort of play with it between themselves and their friend in Germany, and they get the CB effect. When you walk in the door and say `I'd like to talk to you about integrating your communications infrastructure,' they go `Uh-uh. Been there, done that.'"

E-Net's major product, Telecom 2000, performs the functions of a PBX across an Ethernet backbone. Another product, the Telecom 2000 Digital Trunk Interface, connects PBX trunk lines across a wide area data network, transporting calls via IP across frame relay, DSL, ISDN, or ATM networks. As a result, companies no longer need to divide T1s between voice and data because voice packets are generated only when someone is talking.

"Veschi's concept is, people are buying data, so why not take voice to the desktop," says Dominick DeAngelo, vice president of IP services for Sprint. "It's brilliant to put it on Ethernet."

E-Net has trademarked the term "data telephony" for its patented approach to voice over packet-based networks. The technology does work--the company uses it on its own WAN between its administrative offices in Germantown, Md., and its research center in Austin, Texas. (Veschi doesn't advocate using the Internet unless you're willing to put up with the uneven quality.) Over the WAN, the voice is clear, and all the traditional telephone commands work. Calls can be set up with a handset or using a PC interface.

DEALING WITH THE PUBLIC TELEPHONE NETWORK

Using the WAN data circuits for voice avoids the regulatory taxes on long-distance voice calls, because there are no surcharges on data traffic. The problem is going out from the WAN to the PSTN. In most packet-voice applications, there is no easy connection between the LAN PBX and the local network. E-Net thinks it has that problem solved.

"We looked at five other designers of similar stuff," says DeAngelo, "and found e-Net to be the only one going to the desktop without a lot of added software, and it was using Q.931 signaling." Since most voice networks are using SS7 (the ITU's Signaling System 7 standard), it is important to have a gateway out. "When you start putting all this stuff over a backbone, then getting on-net and off net is the killer stuff. So you can call the local deli from your office," says DeAngelo.

Providing the signaling mechanisms among the various protocols amounts to "cracking the code" that makes PBX LANs interoperate. Veschi is set on using those industry signaling standards.

"Everything we do today is based around one or two standards," he says. "When we started back in the early '90s, there were no data telephony standards or standards for voice over IP, so we adopted the telecommunications standards. All the messages flying back and forth for call setup and tear down, all the messages flying back and forth for call transfer, call waiting, three-way calling, those are all straight out of the Q.931 specification." That turns out to be an important decision for interoperability of the data network and the PSTN.

"SS7 is the default trunking, so if you interconnect you have to be able to talk to the traditional public network," says Mike Viren, senior vice president of strategic planning for Tampa-based Intermedia, the country's largest CLEC now that AT&T has bought TCG. Intermedia, like Sprint, is planning for an ATM-based world. Intermedia wants to let other people like Cascade or e-Net handle the gateway, and then let edge devices handle the call as a data element.