Softswitch Network for Carriers and Service Providers

June 15, 2000 -- Carrier Access and ArelNet recently announced a new end-to-end softswitch network integrating Carrier Access' Adit 600 customer service terminal as a media gateway and ArelNet's carrier grade i-Tone PRIME Gateway and call agent.

The combined solution, according to the companies, enables service providers to originate VoIP calls from customer premises using the Adit 600 and route them anywhere in the world through ArelNet's i-Tone PRIME gateway. ArelNet's MGCP / H.323 call agent and gatekeeper controls all calls. The companies demonstrated the system at the recent SuperComm 2000 in Atlanta, GA. 

When configured as a media gateway, the Carrier Access Adit 600 Customer Service Terminal should provide multi-service access at the edge of converged packet networks. Carrier Access says that the Adit 600 packetizes voice using industry standard VoIP encoding and signals to softswitches using standard MGCP, Megaco/H.248, and SIP. Also, the Adit 600 supports integrated IP routing and a set of customer service interfaces in a compact platform that supports up to 32 Mb/s of total bandwidth.

i-Tone PRIME is a hot-swappable, no-single-point-of-failure, highly scalable carrier-grade gateway that offers an extensive feature set for the deployment of large and robust VoIP networks. ArelNet says that up to 24 T1s or E1s may be configured in a gateway that can be stackable to handle up to 5,000 simultaneous calls.

"Working with an acknowledged market leader like Carrier Access presents ArelNet with an exciting opportunity to reach the U.S. CLEC market," said Sarig Zur, ArelNet's executive vice president of Sales and Marketing. "The Adit 600 and I-Tone PRIME bring together powerful access solutions at the customer premises and a carrier-grade gateway at the central office. The result is a carrier-grade platform for CLECs to deliver competitive end-to-end VoIP services."