Magellan Network Systems, maker of softswitches and enhanced telecom services systems, has joined the International Softswitch Consortium as a founding member.
The Consortium was formed earlier this year by Cisco Systems, Level 3 Communications, Enron Communications, Hewlett-Packard and other leading telecommunications vendors to promote open standards and applications permitting the convergence of the traditional telephone network with the Internet.
The 52-member Consortium promotes "softswitch" architectures that facilitate the interoperability of products supporting voice and multimedia communications over IP networks. Initial efforts are targeted at standard interfaces such as the Session Initiation Protocol (SIP), the Real-Time Transport Protocol (RTP), the Real-Time Streaming Protocol (RTSP) and the Media Gateway Control Protocol (MGCP).
Jeff Paine, Magellan vice president of marketing, said, "Our recently announced Mariner product, one of the first true softswitch implementations, is designed to provide call control and enhanced services in a legacy phone network, an IP network, or a hybrid of the two. The Softswitch Consortium's standardization efforts -- notably with SIP and MGCP -- will help us take Magellan's proven expertise in circuit-switched call control and apply it seamlessly to the ATM and IP network environments in controlling the gateways that run key voice services."
Founded in May 1999, the Softswitch Consortium is an international non-profit organization for global cooperation and coordination of internetworking technologies in the field of Internet-based real-time interactive communications and related applications. Many applications emulate circuit switching in software; hence the name "softswitch."
The Consortium identifies, selects and augments the development and distribution of standard interfaces for the call agents, media gateways and applications that make up IP networks. Additional information about the Consortium can be found on the organization's web site at www.softswitch.org.
Magellan Network Systems, founded in 1994, develops and markets carrier-quality, scalable telecommunications services platforms for a wide variety of service providers, including traditional telephone companies, Internet and Internet telephony service providers, and competitive and incumbent local exchange carriers.
The company's products offer an unprecedented range of enhanced services, including pre- and post-paid calling cards, long-distance resale, voicemail and unified messaging services, all with fully integrated billing and administration. Customers include British Telecom, Deutsche Telekom, In Touch Telecom, Startec and Kertel. Magellan is privately held and has 125 employees. For more information, visit Magellan's web site at www.magellan.com.
