At SuperComm this week, Lucent Technologies Inc. announced a universal gateway that enables service providers to deliver dial-up IP remote access and voice over IP services for their business and residential customers.
The APX 8100 Universal Gateway is targeted at large carriers, wholesale service providers and ISPs with voice and data IP services requirements like managed modem applications. It supports up to 12 DS-3’s or 8,064 calls (a rack can support as many as 24,192 universal ports), and its universal port technology allows service providers to support voice, data, fax and VPN calls on any port using a single digital signal processor module, Lucent says.
The APX 8100 supports SIP, a protocol that allows voice, video and data calls to be set up between IP-based devices. In addition, the APX 8100 is a H.248/MEGACO packet trunking gateway that allows carriers to connect to Lucent softswitch-based networks with support for wholesale Internet call diversion, VoIP transit, voice VPNs, and other subscriber services.
The APX 8100 also features G.711, G.729a+b and G.723.1 audio codecs that are used in Internet Call Waiting, PC-to-phone and bandwidth optimization applications. It also includes OC-3 and Gigabit Ethernet interfaces that reduce interconnection costs.
In addition, the APX 8100 includes optional SS7 support for softswitch integration, V.92 and V.90 modem protocols and VoIP calling card and trunking services requiring MEGACO/H.248, IPDC, H.323 or SIP protocols.
The APX 8100 will be available in the third quarter. Entry-level pricing starts at US$55,000 and includes the basic hardware, redundant power supplies, chassis, and shelf controller module.
Lucent also announced SIP enablement in other packet telephony products. The PacketIN SIP Proxy Server and PacketIN Application Hosting Environment (AHE) allow Lucent to develop or integrate third party personalized communications services such as ‘Find Me’ and ‘Click-to-Dial.’
The Lucent Softswitch now uses SIP to interface with other softswitches as well as application platforms, such as the Lucent PacketIN AHE, Lucent EXS Converged Services Platform and other third-party application servers. It supports SIP endpoints, soft clients and hard phones providing multimedia sessions and application access.
