Software companies flourish in cellular's competitive marketplace

Mobile Phone News, July 2, 1992

Meeting the telecommunications industry's ever increasing demands for fault-tolerant network management systems, Stratus Computer Inc. and Boston Technology Inc. have teamed to develop and to market a family of enhanced voice processing platforms, the CO ACCESS 1000 systems. The new systems combine Stratus' fault-tolerant computers with Boston Technology's CO ACCESS system and applications. The platform initially will be targeted specifically to international telecommunications customers for deployment of enhanced services to residential, business and cellular customers.

Fault-tolerant capabilities are becoming a must in communications networks in order to maintain and to enhance communications services, said Stratus. Stratus has been a pioneer in designing fault-tolerant systems and boasts significant penetration into the banking industry because of the industry's critical on-line applications.

...Doubling Equipment Provides for Fault Tolerance

The systems maintain fault tolerance by using a pair and spare design, employing four physical CPUs for one logic board. If one CPU fails, there is another to support the logic board and keep the network up-and-running.

Because of the reliability of Stratus' computers, equipment vendors such as Northern Telecom, Ericsson, AT&T and NEC incorporate Stratus in their switch designs.

Boston Technology's CO ACCESS 1000 system will communicate with all leading central office and cellular switches, in addition to most private branch exchanges (PBX). Specific to the mobile industry, Status provides Stratus Cellular Management System (SCMS), Home Location Register (HLR) for cellular providers, voice processing and Personal Communications Services (PCS).

The CO ACCESS 1000 includes Boston Technology's Service Creation Environment. In this environment, application development tools will allow service providers to easily customize services. As operators need applications to become more sophisticated and the interaction among multiple applications becomes more complex, Boston Technology's tools will help service providers keep pace with the evolving enhanced services industry.