The Information and Internet Revolution has changed the way that consumers and businesses communicate within themselves and their external partners. We now have many choices in which we may exchange information: email, fax, voice-mail, and video mail all on a wide array of multimedia devices; wireless phones, personal computers, fax machines and PDA's. The integration of this information with the communication devices that port it has lead has simplified communications on a global scale. The ability to send and receive conversations and information via the Internet is the beginning of the Voice-over IP market.

"In early 2000, IP telephony was the latest technology set to challenge established models of voice service provision. It opened up new opportunities for competitive carriers and gave incumbents a way to break free from paying high prices for circuit-switched voice equipment. However, we are now in the era of declining technology stocks, financial difficulties.

Softswitches are the key to helping established carriers rebuild their businesses and helping new-entrant carriers enter the market. They will deliver cost savings and enable a far greater range of services that can be delivered from the rigid voice switching platforms deployed today"
- Ovum Report (Softswitches: The keys to next-generation IP network opportunity)

Market Trends

ILT's Softswitch is an Application-enabled Softswitch. This is a generation of Softswitches that brings about a revolutionary shift in the market by being application-centric versus telephony-centric.

CINC architecture allows advanced applications to be quickly introduced and also provides a natural mechanism for interfacing with other hosted applications, both within a service provider's network and the Internet. Such service applications give service providers compelling reasons for deploying softswitches, enabling them to move from declining business models such as selling simple cost-effective basic services for less, to significant revenue generating new services. These applications offer a model of hosted services similar to what made Centrix initially popular, but focus on advanced PBX functions and other new innovative services not typically provided by traditional telephony companies. Examples are click-to-dial, voice-activated dialing, and answering e-mail from the phone. Furthermore, such services can be provisioned and managed from the web.

CINC identifies and deciphers telephony data such as voice, fax, modem data and video in real-time over PSTN lines or any channels capable of carrying data. Such a system would dynamically identify the type of data; voice, fax, modem data or video and execute appropriate routines to process and route the data.

Universal port enables equipment providers to overcome the shortcomings of traditional systems to meet the demanding requirements of ISPs, telecom carriers, and Internet telephony service providers (ITSPs). Universal port-enabled IT equipment will support voice, fax, and modem services over packet-switched networks such as Ethernet LANs, asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) backbones, and frame-relay wide-area networks (WANs).

When bundled into an "AECOS" system, ILT's e-business platform, CINC provides all the functionality required of a PSTN-interface device for inbound and outbound calls. On its own, it can serve as a media gateway able to accept and route Voice-over-IP (VoIP) and real- time Fax-over-IP (FoIP) calls.

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