Atlanta, GA — (press release) — Axtar Ltd., a UK-based developer of programmable communications solutions for public network operators and service providers, has announced OneSwitch, the industry's first standards-based Central Office programmable telephony switch to use both the Red Hat Linux operating system and the CompactPCI (cPCI) form factor.

OneSwitch is also the first system to combine a carrier-grade programmable switch, a Voice over IP Gateway and a value-added services platform. Communications services that can be supported by the device include: web-based call center services, personal numbering, pre-paid calling card, Internet Call Waiting services and 1xxx services. The product will start shipping Q3 2000.

“By taking a clean-sheet approach to designing the OneSwitch we were able to fully leverage the broad availability of telecoms components and sub assemblies that are suitable for integrating into a new Central Office standard switch,” said Martin Wren-Hilton, Managing Director of Axtar. “The result is a modular, flexible, scaleable, multi-service platform that can adapt to the needs of Telcos, Application Service Providers (ASPs) and Internet Service Providers (ISPs).”

The Axtar OneSwitch supports both circuit switched interfaces such as TDM (E1 or T1) as well as IP (Ethernet) network interfaces. It is a complete replacement for a CLASS 5 or CLASS 4 central office switch and can be implemented on its own as the primary (core) switch in a small network or as an edge switch for larger networks. Its architecture is both signalling agnostic and bearer agnostic, meaning that high-level value-added applications are abstracted from low-level issues such as network protocols (SS7, ISDN), transmission medium type (TDM, IP) and media coding methods (G.711, G.723, G,729).

Key features include:

• high availability (99.999% or better) with no downtime, even for software upgrades
  
• small footprint (19″ wide, 10U high per node)
  
• NEBS compliance
  
• high programmability (through open interfaces including INAP CS1/CS2 and PARLAY)
  
• SS7 signalling support (including BT NUP, ETSI ISUP and ISDN signalling)
  
• H.323 and SIP/MGCP compliance for Voice over IP (VoIP)
  
• voice compression/transcoding support
  
• integration with existing OMAP and billing systems (TMN, CORBA)
  
• http interface for web-based OMAP
  
• scalability (4 to 64 E1s per chassis, up to 32 chassis per switch, non-blocking)

To achieve the goals of high availability and low MTTR, the OneSwitch is housed in a custom-designed CompactPCI (cPCI) chassis, with dual redundant PSUs, which houses up to 12 hot-swappable cPCI resource cards (such as E1/T1, IP, DSP).

Open Interfaces

Axtar supports many open interfaces defined by the ITU, ETSI, IETF and related industry standard-setting organisations. Much of the internal architecture is based on Intelligent Network (IN) standards including CS1 and CS2. External interfaces available for developers include a PARLAY-compliant interface, an MGCP interface, and a CS1 interface.

About Axtar

Axtar designs, develops and markets a range of advanced convergent switch products for the carrier and service provider markets. The company's first product, the OneSwitch) programmable switching platform, was launched in June 2000, in Atlanta, GA at SUPERCOMM 2000.

 
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