Packet Voice IDLC Access System Generic Requirements
A common characteristic of the evolving public telecommunications network is the use of packet switching technology to facilitate the merging of carrier-class voice communications (“telephony”) with other telecom applications (web page browsing, e-mail, file transfer, messaging, streaming audio/video, video conferencing, etc.) on a common transport, switching, and control infrastructure. The introduction of packetized voice transport in the access network presents new challenges for access system suppliers, and introduces new operations support and planning issues for network operators.
While distributed, open service interface, switching architectures (“softswitch” architectures) offer great promise in improving telephony services in the 21st century, the large embedded base of class 5 local digital switching systems will continue to provide dial tone services for many years to come. Service providers with a large embedded base of class 5 digital switching systems are deploying broadband access systems to their residential and small/medium business customers. These service providers need to maximize the service potential of their broadband access facilities by providing a mixture of narrowband and broadband multimedia services, including voice services.
Telcordia has completed work on two Generic Requirements (GR) documents that are focused on the impacts of adding packet voice technology to network access systems that interconnect to the public switched telephone network (PSTN) via a time division multiplexed (TDM) based Integrated Digital Loop Carrier (IDLC) interface. These documents also consider issues and criteria related to transitioning these PV-IDLC systems to operate under the control of a softswitch based telephone network.