New Current Analysis Report shows the Softswitch is Going to Pieces

STERLING, VA – August 6, 2008 – While the softswitch market is likely to retain a relatively healthy disposition for the next few years, the softswitch itself is going to pieces – literally – according to a new Current Analysis Advisory Report, “Softswitch 2008: Disaggregating Toward Extinction."

A definitive description of the softswitch has always eluded observers in the telecommunications industry, mostly due to confusion over the uneven distribution of various signaling- and media-handling components of the technology across the service delivery infrastructure. The situation is only going to get worse, however, as softswitch makers have recently engaged in a new round of disaggregation that is literally breaking up the softswitch into multiple pieces. “Being able to offer carrier customers cost and performance efficiencies associated with distributed and modular architectures is a driving force behind this movement,” said Joe McGarvey, Principal Analyst, IP Services Infrastructure.

The Current Analysis report also states that a major factor driving the further disaggregation of the softswitch is to enable operators to smoothly and incrementally move their service delivery infrastructures to an IMS-based architecture. There are multiple questions surrounding this latest trend in the softswitch market: What will be the movement’s impact on existing softswitch providers and will disaggregation favor softswitch vendors with legacy TDM experience or those that have constructed their products on a SIP/IP foundation? What is the overall lifespan of the current softswitch? Once the technology is reduced to a collection of components scattered around the networks does it cease to exist?

Current Analysis covers the topic of softswitches and IP Services Infrastructure , including detailed analytical product assessments of competitive softswitch products from Nortel, Alcatel-Lucent, Ericsson, Sonus Networks, Veraz Networks and others. Current Analysis has three analysts on its IP Services Infrastructure team covering the companies, products and strategies impacting the evolution of packet-based networks into the preferred infrastructure for delivering voice- and multimedia-based communications, as well as the gradual transition of the PSTN from circuit-based to packet-based technology

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Media contact:
Natalie Spinelli
Marketing Manager
Current Analysis, Inc.
+1 703-788-3644
nspinelli@currentanalysis.com

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