- Telecommunication service Harmonization
- Gateways based Harmonization
- Service Broker based Harmonization
- Legacy switches vs Softswitches
- Service Delivery Layer in Legacy vs Harmonized Services
A communication system can be made up of many components which are individually undergoing evolution such as access layer generations, and core layer upgrades. Harmonized and uniform open standard-based service delivery platforms over legacy Proprietary codebase is the preferred choice for most service providers to save the investment in their infrastructure and programming while keeping up with the shift in technology. I shall be editing this post to discuss more on the process of Service Harmonization.This saves the Telecom Service Provider the trouble of rewriting call logic with every telecom generation evolution ie IN to SIP to Web based WebRTC phones.
Landscape shift for Telecommunication Service providers includes Transmission layer which is ATM/Frame relays moving towards IP/MPLS. Access Layer hardware specific to POTS / PSTN / ISDN upgrading towards NGN and VOIP. Packet Switched Next gen Soft Switches based on SIP.
Telecommunication service Harmonization
The Service Harmonization Layer does the job of holding all new and legacy services while providing uniform interface to interact with access network regardless of the back-end Call program logic. It involves consolidation for the service layers across IMS and legacy mobile network and Orchestration to extend the capability of underlying platform to support multiple IN variants. Diagrammatic depiction of scope of Service Harmonization.
Gateways based Harmonization
Service Broker based Harmonization
As CSPs evolve their networks for LTE, the resulting networks present tremendous challenges in voice services and application delivery. Realizing this opportunity, the telecom software industry has come forward with a purpose-built network element: the Service Broker, a solution specifically designed to overcome network architecture challenges and ensure voice service delivery from any network domain to any other network domain. Service Brokers are placed between the application layer and the control layer.
A service broker is a service abstraction layer between the network and application layer in a telecom environment. SB( Service Broker ) enables us to make use of existing applications and services from Intelligent Network’s SCP ( Service Control Point ), IMS’s Application Server as well as other sources in a harmonized manner
Legacy switches vs Softswitches
Legacy switches are circuit-switched, monolithic, propertiary and expensive while Softswitch is packet-switched and open interfaced. They are scalable and vendor-independent which enables easy convergence. Softswitches forms the basis for a service harmonization engine as they increase the granularity and power processing distribution of the Network
Service Delivery Layer in Legacy vs Harmonized Services
Legacy Service Layer has a function-centric architecture having multiple domain-specific session types such as Mobile calls, IPTV and broadband. Harmonized service delivery layer has Open APIs and is essentially Data-centric. This leads to fast and agile development and deployment of convergent services specifically IMS system providing the framework for underline network agnosticism across fixed and mobile.
Telecom R & D 