Draft Feb 25, 2000

Table of Contents
1.	Executive Summary	3
2.	Introduction	4
3.	IP Telephony and Messaging	4
4.	Market Opportunity	7
5.	Value Proposition	9
6.	Partners	12
7.	Network Architecture	15
8.	System Architecture	19
9.	Summary	22

1.	Executive Summary

IPTelephony is an exploding market. Although it is currently driven by toll-bypass and cost savings, the real benefits of IP Telephony lie in the revenue generating innovative services that can be deployed on converged packet-based IP networks.

Among the leading enhanced services in the IP Telephony market is Unified Messaging (UM). UM fits “naturally” on a combined voice-data network and acts as a platform for exploiting the multimedia capabilities offered by the network. It is a primary service differentiator that is a must for every Service Provider’s network whether the Service Provider is an incumbent or a new entrant.

Lucent’s AnyPath Unified Messaging System (UMS) is a flexible, reliable and scalable messaging platform that offers advanced features that increase the value of the Service Providers’ offerings. It interfaces with both PSTN and IP networks and lives comfortably in diverse network topologies. AnyPath is architected to enable the speedy deployment of new services and incorporation of changes as they occur in the rapidly evolving world of IP Telephony. 

The AnyPath Unified Messaging System incorporates the best of Bell Lab’s innovations and Lucent’s proven network-grade solutions to offer a platform that is highly scalable and flexible, and will protect customers’ investment for years to come.

1.	
2.	 Introduction

	Purpose

This paper describes Lucent’s Internet Protocol (IP) Telephony strategy for the AnyPath Unified Messaging System. First it provides a brief overview of IP Telephony and Unified Messaging over IP. It then covers the market drivers and lays out the value proposition for AnyPath in the IP Telephony market. The paper concludes with an overview of AnyPath’s technology, architecture and strategy.

Section 3 “IP Telephony and Messaging” describes the IP Telephony technology and Unified Messaging (UM), and introduces the AnyPath UMS. The next section (Section 4 “) details the IP Telephony market and the various segments of the market. 

Readers familiar with the IP Telephony market may want to skip directly to Section 5 “Value Proposition” which lays out the benefits of the AnyPath Unified Messaging System and the value it adds to Service Providers’ networks. The subsequent section (Section 6 “Partners”) describes the products that AnyPath plans to interface with. The following two sections, (Sections 7 and 8) entitled “Network Architecture” and “System Architecture”, deal with the technical aspects of AnyPath. They describe how AnyPath fits into the diverse Service Provider networks and how AnyPath is architected to interface with IP networks. 
	
3.	IP Telephony and Messaging

	Convergence

The world of communications is undergoing a fundamental revolution with the worldwide convergence of data infrastructure and the telecommunications networks. IP Telephony is one of the emerging technologies driving this convergence. The integration of these previously disparate networks promises to bring about increased efficiencies and huge cost savings as compared to current circuit switched networks. The resulting next generation networks are simpler, more flexible, much easier to manage, have better bandwidth utilization and promise to open the doors for deployment of exciting new applications. In summary, IP Telephony is commanding the attention of Service Providers because of its promise as a more flexible solution and its low cost and high efficiency.

	IP Telephony

IP Telephony belongs to the family of technologies that enable both real-time and non real-time voice, fax and multimedia communications over packet based networks. Traditionally, data traffic has been carried over packet based networks, predominantly IP networks, while voice is typically carried over circuit switched networks. However, for a number of reasons packet based networks are inherently more efficient than circuit switched networks for real-time voice and multimedia communications. 

First, circuit-switched networks are implemented in a way that dedicates bandwidth (typically 64Kb/sec) to each voice connection. Packet networks do not have this limitation and therefore allow a flexible mixture of voice, video and data traffic to use only the bandwidth that each application needs at a given time. Second, voice traffic on an IP network is typically compressed. This allows a single call to occupy less than one fourth of the bandwidth it would occupy on a circuit switched network. Finally, since voice conversations are bursty in nature, a significant part of the bandwidth in a dedicated circuit switched connection ends up carrying silence, leaving much of the connection’s capacity unutilized. In packet based networks, using techniques such as silence suppression, only those packets that contain voice signals are transmitted. 

All of these factors combined allow packet based networks to carry a much larger number of simultaneous connections using the same amount of bandwidth as circuit switched networks.

The idea of converged packet-based networks has been around for more than a decade. Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN) and Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) technologies were introduced in the eighties and early nineties to make convergence a reality. Even today Voice over ATM and Voice over Frame Relay are competing technologies for transporting voice over packet networks. But IP has recently seen a huge push as the main driver towards convergence. With the explosive growth of the Internet, IP based networks are now ubiquitous and have the potential to generate the critical mass needed to drive adoption of IP as the transport mechanism of choice for real-time voice, data and multimedia communications. In addition IP Quality of Service (QoS) developments now allow quality real-time voice traffic over IP. Moreover, Service Providers can take advantage of the commonality of IP while maintaining their ATM networks, since both protocols complement each other in sharing the network efficiently.

IP Telephony is rapidly gaining momentum. The primary business drivers for this include:

•	Toll-bypass: The largest driver for IP Telephony has been and continues to be toll-bypass. IP Telephony provides the opportunity to avoid regular telephony charges and regulatory restrictions on long-distance and international calls by routing calls over low-cost private IP networks or the public Internet. Typically, high margin markets such as these are likely to be the first to adopt IP Telephony. 

•	Voice/Data Integration: By combining their voice and data traffic, organizations are reaping the benefits of reduced costs, simplified deployment and management, and better utilization of their integrated networks. Since IP treats voice as data, integration of voice and data on these networks is simplified and more efficient.

•	Value-Added Services: Longer term, the benefits of IP Telephony lie in the exciting new applications that can be deployed on the converged networks. The Internet, in general, is globalizing economies and creating demand for more sophisticated communication and application alternatives. These new applications are aimed at greatly enhancing our ability to communicate, and increasing our productivity while significantly lowering the cost of communication. The applications will take advantage of the combination of voice, data and multimedia and provide services such as multimedia conferencing, enhanced e-commerce and unified messaging.

Although the tariff arbitrage opportunity is the overriding incentive behind the growth of IP Telephony today, its importance is expected to reduce with the gradual convergence of Public Switched Telephony Network (PSTN) and IP call rates and the potential regulation of the IP Telephony industry. Therefore IP Telephony Service Providers are increasingly placing their focus on service differentiation and gaining further parity with existing PSTN services. It is expected that IP will provide the framework for enabling network convergence, new products, services and value-added applications.

Unified Messaging

A service that is increasingly playing a significant role among the set of service differentiators in the IP Telephony space is Unified Messaging. According to International Data Corporation (IDC) reports Unified Messaging is “the leading enhanced service identifiable today”. Unified Messaging has been defined as: The ability to easily create, send and retrieve any type of message -- anytime, anywhere -- with any terminal device -- regardless of how people are communicating.

Unified Messaging simplifies communication and increases productivity by allowing users to deposit and retrieve messages through any means of connectivity available to them. Subscribers can listen to their emails over a wireless phone while travelling, access their voice mail while logged on to the Internet, print their emails on a fax machine at a hotel front-desk or forward media-rich messages to anyone with an email or UM account. By folding in different media types into a single mailbox, Unified Messaging allows messages in any media type to be forwarded to another destination, without the need for transcribing or translating the message. Unified Messaging increases responsiveness and reachability by allowing users to communicate over a wide array of devices of their choice.  

Unified Messaging is an ideal platform for developing exciting multimedia applications that take advantage of both telephony and data networking features. Applications such as news feeds, instant messaging and click-to-talk belong in this category. Unified Messaging is expected to grow exponentially in the next few years, and will enhance worker’s productivity, efficiency and communication experience tremendously.

	Lucent Solution

Lucent’s AnyPath Unified Messaging System is a robust, reliable and scaleable platform designed specifically to meet the needs of the Service Provider market. AnyPath supports messaging across multiple media types such as voice, fax, text and arbitrary binary attachments. It implements a rich set of multimedia messaging functionality and features. Its flexible and easy-to-use Service Creation Environment lets Service Providers rapidly deploy new services and customize existing applications to suit their customers’ needs. 

One of the primary advantages of the AnyPath UMS for Service Providers is that it will interface seamlessly to either a PSTN or IP network. The user experience remains the same regardless of the network through which the system is accessed. This gives Service Providers the ability to gradually transition their networks to a next generation network without losing their investment in messaging. 

AnyPath lets IP Telephony Service Providers achieve instant parity with the Unified Messaging capabilities and applications already present in PSTN networks. AnyPath also serves as a foundation for creating innovative services that tightly integrate the capabilities of telephony and data networks. It uses standard interfaces on an open platform architecture that allows it to operate with equipment from different vendors. 

Lucent’s Communications Applications Group has a long history of providing carrier grade and highly reliable messaging solutions to both the enterprise and service provider markets. AnyPath leverages this experience to provide a Unified Messaging solution that will continue to incorporate the best in Bell Labs innovation and technology and add value to the customers’ networks.

4.	
Market Opportunity

	Market Growth and Projections

The market for IP Telephony services is growing at a tremendous rate. Piper Jaffray estimates that approximately 500 million minutes of voice and fax traffic passed through IP networks in 1998. This figure is expected to grow close to 80 billion minutes of use by the year 2003. 

		 Source: Piper Jaffray Equity Research

These figures represent a growth from 0.5% of overall traffic travelling across IP networks in 1998 to 6.1% by 2003. Market forecasts made by IDC also suggest the growth in minutes of use of IP traffic to be 50-70% quarter-over-quarter. In such a dynamic and fast-paced marketplace, it is extremely important to recognize the market forces and adapt business models to take an early lead.

	Market Segments

In a hot growth market such as this, there are naturally a multitude of players, both incumbents and recent market entrants. It is important to recognize the different segments of the Service Provider IP Telephony market and the drivers that are fuelling growth in each of those segments.

•	Incumbent Local Exchange Carriers and Public Telecom Operators: ILECs and PTOs across the board are facing increasing competitive pressures due to the liberalization and deregulation of the telecommunications industry in many countries. The competition is especially threatening from Next Generation Operators offering cheaper services and service bundles.

In addition to reacting to increased competition, ILECs and PTOs view IP Telephony as an opportunity to expand into newer geographic areas more cost effectively – especially to offer long distance services. More importantly, IP Telephony is the technology that provides the opportunity to expand into integrated voice-data services, which holds the promise of offering higher returns through better utilization of their vast existing infrastructure. These Service Providers will take advantage of an early entry into the market to reap the returns from value-added-services in the future. An early entry gives them the ability to grow not only with the technology but also the perceived user needs.

•	Competitive Local Exchange Carriers and New Licensed Operators: IP Telephony offers new entrants such as CLECs and NLOs the ability to penetrate a growing market without the regulatory burdens generally associated with the telecommunications industry. The initial equipment and services are cheaper to install and manage. Thus the barriers of entry are very low in this market and CLECs and NLOs can enter the market with minimum capital investment.

This gives smaller operators the ability to enter the most profitable markets without necessarily having a large infrastructure in place. Even with smaller operations, the market offers tremendous opportunities for growth both in the voice and data areas. Without the overhead of a large operation and various avenues for cutting costs, these Service Providers are able to offer cheaper voice and multimedia services. This presents CLECs and NLOs with a golden opportunity, while posing a serious threat to incumbent operators. 

•	Internet Service Providers: ISPs are also feeling competitive pressures from Next Generation Operators and Managed Network Providers who are encroaching on their market. Moreover ISPs feel the urgency to offer differentiated services in an increasingly saturated market in many countries and regions. IP Telephony provides an opportunity for ISPs to move into higher-growth and more profitable areas such as voice, fax and multimedia. This could be achieved without the need for substantial additional investment, by utilizing the ISP’s existing data infrastructure. Their experience in IP networks gives ISPs the ability to quickly setup, manage and introduce new services and get higher returns on their investment.

•	Application Service Providers: The ASP segment of the market is a rapidly emerging area. Operating with business models that are often very different from those of traditional service providers, customers in this category stand to benefit enormously from both the move to IP-based networks and also the open, flexible application development tool kits that allow them to rapidly develop enhanced services. Unified messaging platforms such as AnyPath that operate using VoIP and have tool kits such as ToolBox Pro are an ideal base upon which Java based applications can be rapidly built and deployed.

•	Cable Service Providers: Recent mergers and acquisitions activities in the telecommunications industry have brought together Cable Operators and Telephony Service Providers. This has resulted in a new class of operators that are aiming to provide voice, data and multimedia services over the existing cable infrastructure. Cable providers are well positioned to capitalize on a market shift toward voice over packet because of the high bandwidth already available through their native coaxial and fiber infrastructures.

Cable operators, in addition to offering traditional cable services, now compete successfully in markets traditionally owned by both LECs and ISPs. By successfully leveraging the complete bundle of services, these operators have an attractive residential market to target. These operators view IP Telephony as an opportunity to offer a broader range of services and enter into an exploding market. It gives them the ability to better utilize their extensive network infrastructure, which reaches millions of households in many different countries. The fact that these operators own their entire network and most importantly the “last mile” to the residence gives them an edge over CLECs and ISPs, who must use ILEC equipment for “last mile” access.
5.	Value Proposition

	Benefits of Unified Messaging

Messaging is a critical component of the converged network. It is a well-established service differentiator and among the leading enhanced service in a Service Provider’s offering today. Messaging is a proven service, as can be witnessed by the proliferation of messaging services in networks around the world. End users have come to regard messaging as a fundamental feature of their phone service. And now, the Unified Messaging market is experiencing exponential growth with end users utilizing the benefits of a single repository for their voice, fax, email and multimedia messages that is accessible via phone, fax, PC and other devices. As can be observed from the figures below, Unified Messaging is expected to grow both in revenues and number of deployed mailboxes at an astounding rate. 

Source: The Pelorus Group

Source: The Pelorus Group

Unified Messaging as an application is a “natural” in a converged voice-data network. It is an enabler for exploiting the multimedia capabilities in the network by letting end users access the different media types on the messaging system through all kinds of communication devices. Unified Messaging definitely belongs to the family of “killer-applications” for IP Telephony today. A comprehensive UM solution with a flexible architecture, such as the AnyPath UMS, can serve as a foundation for creating and launching a wide variety of interesting applications in the future. 

As discussed earlier, in the long run, service differentiation will be the key driver in the IP Telephony market. The arbitrage-only business model is continually losing its value proposition with the increasing competition and decreasing telephony rates. In this environment, Service Providers can leverage the many advantages of UM such as increased network usage, rounded out messaging offerings and improved end-user satisfaction and loyalty, to increase the attractiveness of their service offering. UM offers a portfolio of features such as call routing, notification services, directory services and media translation, which increase the value of the mailbox for the end user.

Unified Messaging should be considered more than just a standalone application. It is also a foundational component that supports a number of communications and transaction processing applications by providing a reliable means of non-real time communication. It can be used as an effective means of capturing additional data that does not lend itself to forms-based entry, in supporting attachments to conversations and as a backup mechanism for important conversations.

While positioned as a “premium” service beyond basic voice, fax or email hosted services, Unified Messaging is considered most compelling when it is leveraged as part of a “service bundle”, targeting specific market segments.  As an example, many Service Providers are “bundling” Unified Messaging applications with other services such as, high-speed Internet access, virtual private networks, mobile air-time, call management applications and more. These bundles are priced to address the targeted market segment e.g. small office/home office (SOHO), small & medium businesses, residential consumers and road warriors. An important aspect of unifying communications is a value proposition that is based on cost and time-savings.

Lucent’s AnyPath Unified Messaging System

Lucent’s AnyPath UMS offers a wide array of benefits to Service Providers in the IP Telephony market, beyond the set of features and functionality expected of a traditional messaging system. Some of these benefits can be realized in the immediate term, such as reduced costs and centralization of resources, whereas others become more compelling in the long term, such as scalability and introduction of new services. 

•	Best of Both Worlds: The AnyPath UMS will interface seamlessly with both IP and PSTN networks. This gives the ability for Service Providers in the PSTN world to gradually transition their networks to IP without affecting either the service or the subscriber base. The PSTN interface also provides a backup/fail-over in case of IP network congestion or outage. Those Service Providers whose networks are pure IP based may purchase and install only the IP components of AnyPath and save on equipment costs.

The seamless integration of IP and PSTN networks implies a broader community of subscribers for the messaging service. Moreover, end users have the ability to compose and receive their messages from the device of their choice such as a phone, wireless handset, PC or fax over circuit and IP networks. 

•	Cost Reduction: Since it is possible to support a larger number of ports over a specialized IP card interface as compared to a typical PSTN telephony card, AnyPath yields immediate cost benefits. 

•	Per-port costs associated with an IP interface are lower than a PSTN interface card with an equivalent capacity. 
•	Installation and maintenance of a single IP connection is much simpler than wiring, configuring and testing numerous PSTN connections.

In addition, the system itself can be managed over the same network through a web-based interface. Since the AnyPath UMS natively serves as a messaging platform unifying both IP and PSTN networks, it efficiently eliminates the need for redundant platforms for different networks on the Service Provider’s premises.

•	Centralized Messaging: Another source of cost savings using the AnyPath UMS is through centralizing the messaging capabilities within a network by back-hauling messaging traffic over a more cost effective and technically efficient IP backbone. This obviates the need for maintaining a messaging system in each different geographic region that the Service Provider covers.

By economically back-hauling messaging traffic through an IP backbone, Service Providers can deploy innovative services in their networks such as mailbox roaming and single-number mailbox access, without incurring high toll charges for routing calls to the messaging server. It also helps in cost-effectively penetrating geographically dispersed markets with low population densities.

•	Messaging over IP: The AnyPath UMS helps Service Providers instantly achieve feature parity for traditional and advanced unified messaging with PSTN networks. Advanced features on AnyPath include Text-to-Speech, Text-to-Fax, WAP, cross notification, etc. With more advanced features being added to new releases, AnyPath allows Service Providers to grow in the Unified Messaging over IP market without losing their investment. Its broad set of functionality includes features for various end-user market segments such as business, residential and wireless. 

•	Technology: AnyPath leverages Lucent’s solutions and Bell Labs innovations to deliver a carrier-grade, highly reliable and high-performance UM solution. It offers a flexible architecture for easy incorporation of new developments in the IP Telephony industry. Among its many technological advantages are:

•	Flexible architecture for adding new media types and applications
•	Highly scalable architecture that allows centralization of messaging for large networks
•	True Unified Messaging platform as opposed to an “integrated” messaging system
•	Ability to bridge callers on IP and PSTN networks natively
•	Use of current international standard IP Telephony protocols to improve interoperability with equipment from different vendors. 
•	Support for standard PSTN interfaces such as T1, E1, SS7, etc.

•	Future Applications: In addition to being a feature rich Unified Messaging system, AnyPath is also a platform for creating and deploying new enhanced applications in the IP Telephony market for additional revenue and growth potential. AnyPath features a flexible and powerful Service Creation Environment to develop rich Telephony User Interfaces (TUI) and Interactive Voice Response (IVR) applications incorporating the wide variety of features offered by the platform. It allows the integration of voice, fax and data to build these applications. 

AnyPath facilitates the development of applications that tightly integrate the capabilities of telephony and data networks by allowing access to databases and information servers in these networks. With the growth of the Internet, one can think of a multitude of applications that could result from this integration such as: multimedia collaboration, instant unified messaging, call-answer with barge-in, information services such as stock quotes, news feeds, etc. As new technologies and services are introduced, customers can expect to find them supported on AnyPath, allowing them to stay at the cutting edge of the Unified Messaging over IP market. 

6.	Partners

The AnyPath organization is actively engaged in building partnerships with entities both within and outside of Lucent. These partnerships are intended to foster an understanding of the different organizations, their strategies and their products. This understanding helps in building products that are tightly integrated, in order to enhance the capabilities of the customers’ networks. The partnerships will also demonstrate the interoperability of AnyPath with equipment from different vendors in the market. 

Through building close relationships and developing a common direction and vision, the different organizations can better understand and serve customer needs. It is our aim to work with other organizations in their respective areas of expertise to deliver solutions that are efficient, effective, reliable and robust.

	PathStar Access Server

Lucent Technologies’ PathStar Access Server is a carrier-grade real-time voice/data End-Office switch for CLECs, cable companies, ISPs and ILECs building new greenfield, next-generation IP networks. The product is designed specifically to enable network operators to offer low-cost, reliable local and long-distance voice and data services over IP networks including the Internet. Priced at half the cost of the multiple products needed to perform the same functions today, the PathStar Access Server acts as a central office switch-router for the IP world. 

The PathStar Access Server integrates a Digital Loop Carrier, a Telephony System, a Voice-over-IP Gateway, a Remote Access Server, a DSL Access Multiplexor, and an Edge Router in a single system, with integrated Element and Service Management. The PathStar Access Server, which terminates calls on the local loop, sits on the edge of the public network and converts data and voice traffic from phones, fax machines or PCs to IP and routes the packets over an IP network. It is the only IP-based access server that offers direct access to the existing standard copper wire-based local loop, eliminating today's two-step dialing.

Today Lucent’s Caller Applications (CA) messaging system already interfaces with PSAS via a standard T1 interface to enable voice messaging over IP. Work is underway to integrate the AnyPath UMS with the PathStar Access Server and offer Unified Messaging over a pure IP interface. The PathStar Access Server acts as an IP-switch and routes calls to the AnyPath UMS. With a native VoIP interface on AnyPath, no translation/transcoding of either the signaling or bearer channels is necessary to connect end-users on an IP network to the messaging system.

	7 R/E Packet Solutions

The 7R/E Packet Solutions portfolio consists of a variety of products that allow customers to derive the cost benefits of packet networks without sacrificing services and quality. The portfolio consists of products such as the Call Feature Server, MultiMedia Resource Server and Packet Gateway. 

An important member of the 7 R/E family of products is the 7 R/E Packet Driver, which is the link that turns a Lucent 5ESS Switch into a packet switch. It provides both voice and data services over IP or ATM networks, converting calls from circuit format into packets. The Packet Driver allows service providers to evolve their networks to handle increasing data traffic as needed, all while building on their existing 5ESS Switch platform. As packet traffic begins to outweigh circuit traffic, service providers will be able to evolve their 5ESS Switch into a packet switch while, utilizing their existing hardware. Packet Driver supports voice, data, video, and multi-media applications, as well as local, tandem/transit, long distance and international connections.

The AnyPath Unified Messaging System plans to interface with the 7 R/E Packet Driver as a 7 R/E MultiMedia Resource Server. The 7R/E MultiMedia Resource Server enhances the packet-based network by adding telephony features and access gateway services without adding an overlay network. The Packet Driver would be the IP-switch through which the AnyPath UMS provides messaging services on the IP network.

	MultiVoice for the MAX

The MultiVoice for the MAX enables voice traffic to be sent and received over IP-based networks such as the Internet, private intranets, and extranets. It is an integrated Voice-over-IP solution that is high quality, high performance, cost justifiable, scalable, and based on international standards. It gives enterprise customers, service providers, and carriers an immediate and affordable way to introduce real-time voice communications to their traditional IP backbone networks. 

At the risk of over simplification, the MultiVoice product set is comprised of a number of gateways and a gatekeeper. The gateways, known as MultiVoice for the MAX 1800, 2000, 6000 and TNT, scale from the very small (a few BRI lines) to a large system (multiple T1/E1). The gatekeeper is known as the MultiVoice Access Manager (MVAM). A given customer installation typically consists of a number of MultiVoice for the MAX gateways and an MVAM gatekeeper.

AnyPath plans to interface with the MultiVoice for the MAX/TNT and the MVAM to provide Unified Messaging capabilities on IP networks. The MultiVoice components will provide a bridge from PSTN to IP, while AnyPath will register with the MVAM to provide messaging functionality natively over the IP network.

	Cisco AS5300

The Cisco AS5300 is an award-winning dialup remote access server and voice-over-IP (VoIP) gateway. When equipped with voice feature cards (VFCs) and voice-enabled Cisco IOS® software, the AS5300 supports carrier-class VoIP and fax over IP services. In addition to being H.323 compliant, the Cisco AS5300/Voice Gateway supports a family of industry- standard voice Codecs and provides echo cancellation and voice activity detection (VAD)/silence suppression. The Cisco AS5300/Voice Gateway can accept two voice/fax feature cards, so the Cisco AS5300/Voice Gateway can scale up to 96/120 voice connections within a single chassis. 

Service Providers who already offer Internet access can also offer telephony and long-distance service by incrementally adding voice-enabled Cisco AS5300/Voice Gateway ports, additional Primary Rate Interface (PRI), T1, or E1 interfaces, and a gatekeeper, such as the Cisco 2600 and 3600, to serve multiple gateways.

These Service Providers can also deploy Unified Messaging in their networks by installing the AnyPath in the network of Cisco AS5300 gateways and gatekeepers. In this configuration, AnyPath plans to register with the 2600/3600 gatekeeper and complete the calls switched by the AS5300 gateways.

	Other Efforts

Apart from the partnerships mentioned above, the AnyPath organization is involved in many other initiatives intended to demonstrate interoperability among products from different vendors. These initiatives include the Lucent Full Circle Program. Through the use of standard interfaces and protocols, AnyPath demonstrates interoperability with other vendors’ systems to better serve the customers’ needs.

7.	Network Architecture

	Network Models

AnyPath is designed to integrate seamlessly into a number of Service Provider network architectures. With the addition of the IP Telephony capability, AnyPath will provide messaging services in PSTN, hybrid or pure IP networks with equal ease. This gives Service Providers the flexibility they need for enabling Unified Messaging in their diverse networks. 

Service Providers deploying AnyPath in a PSTN network can be assured of investment protection since they can migrate their networks to IP-based as their needs dictate, without requiring a “fork lift” upgrade. Other Service Providers who are ready to deploy AnyPath on an IP network can do so with reduced expenses without sacrificing functionality. Since AnyPath is already a full-featured Unified Messaging product, it provides the PSTN equivalent features which would otherwise have to be redeveloped as with a less mature product. Furthermore, future restructuring and distribution of the AnyPath architecture will significantly reduce network utilization costs and increase scalability, reliability and availability. This architecture will push some functions closer to the end user while centralizing others.

Use of IP as the interface into AnyPath brings a number of advantages to the Service Provider. In the simplest view, an IP-enabled AnyPath replaces traditional PSTN ports for switch connectivity with an IP interface. This reduces costs in terms of a) port cards required on both the switch and AnyPath and b) the cost to configure, install, test and maintain switch to AnyPath connectivity.

From a broader view, access to AnyPath over IP offers a range of advantages to Service Providers depending on their business models and network topologies. The models presented below are intended as starting points for discussing how AnyPath can fit in and add value to the Service Provider’s particular network architecture and business model. The relationships we build with our customers and partners will fuel the direction of the AnyPath UMS, in order to build a richer and more powerful platform that satisfies the customers’ every messaging need.

	AnyPath in the Network Models

•	Traditional PSTN Service Providers that have begun to leverage IP to reduce the cost of providing long distance services and of managing their network can add AnyPath to their hybrid networks. Their IP telephony implementations consist of a combination of VoIP gateways connected to traditional switches and/or next-generation switching elements that can simultaneously interface to PSTN and IP devices. These Service Providers can reduce equipment costs, centralize their messaging equipment and begin to address new markets.

•	New entrants in the Service Provider market that are competing with incumbents on a lower-price service model are investing in IP networks and IP-based switching vehicles. Deploying AnyPath UM solutions in conjunction with their next-generation switches on their IP networks aids feature parity for competition with incumbents, while providing an extraordinarily powerful differentiator from other upstarts. Using the ability to backhaul messaging traffic from Tier 2 and 3 cities over their IP network lowers the barrier to profitably enter the messaging market in those cities.

•	As Cable operators leverage their existing infrastructure to offer high-speed data access and telephony to both enterprise and residential customers, they can deploy AnyPath in the head-end or on the backbone to provide messaging services as well. As with CLECs, this provides messaging service parity with traditional carriers and differentiates the cable operators from other new Telephony Service Providers. 

8.	
System Architecture 

	Distributed Architecture

AnyPath’s open distributed architecture uses industry standard hardware and protocols to allow scalability, availability and independent evolution of the system elements. The AnyPath distributed architecture consists of multiple Unified Messaging servers connected via a high-speed network in a complex. The complex may be configured to appear as a single IP host with integration to either a single switch or multiple switches. The AnyPath UMS can be scaled by increasing the number of UM servers to meet the Service Provider’s needs. 
The individual AnyPath Unified Messaging Servers (UMS) in the complex host the applications and provide physical and logical interfaces to various networks. The UM servers provide the core messaging functionality such as basic message storage, user directories and profiles, and high-speed message deposit and retrieval. They facilitate the storage and retrieval of message components in different media types through a consistent interface.

The IP virtual switch provides the ability for a messaging client on any machine to connect and establish a session with any server in the complex to provide the messaging functionality for each access scenario. The AnyPath complex provides a single system image for OAM&P allowing a single point of administration for subscriber provisioning, system data, alarm management and a centralized view of the system’s logical structures.

Messaging Server Architecture

The hardware layer of an Application Server consists of an industry-standard cPCI chassis that contains an Intel-based processor complex, standard IP and telephony interfaces as well as DSP resources that are used to perform specialty functions which include Automatic Speech Recognition, Text-to-Speech conversion, echo cancellation and silence suppression. 

Atop the hardware are the Operating System and middleware. The current OS is UnixWare 7.1.  The middleware component, known within Lucent as CornerStone, is a general-purpose middleware platform upon which numerous messaging, Interactive Voice Response (IVR) and other multimedia processing applications are based. CornerStone-based solutions currently handle over 10 million calls per day in messaging and voice response applications. The middleware’s job is to create an abstraction of the lower layers while providing an API that facilitates application development. For example, the middleware provides primitive functions such as call answer, record, play and digit collection.  

The middleware also includes a Switch Integration (SWIN) component that interfaces with a range of switches. The SWIN supports an API that delivers generic information to the application such as Caller ID, Message Waiting Indication, etc. The AnyPath UM application uses a critical component called the Messaging Core, which manages the message store, subscriber information, and interface with messaging networks.

Finally, the topmost component is the AnyPath application itself, which provides the interfaces that users are familiar with. It handles all the requests to perform specific operations on messages such as record, address, deliver, retrieve, erase and convert to speech.

	IP-enabling the AnyPath UMS

The component-based internal architecture of the Application Servers is ideally suited for adaptation to Unified Messaging over IP. IP-enabling the AnyPath is accomplished by making very specific extensions to the architecture. At the hardware level CornerStone has long included an IP interface for communication between separate messaging systems as well as signaling between AnyPath and switches. The use of this interface is extended by adding an H.323 stack, for IP call answer, message retrieval, etc. The SWIN software is modified to handle special signaling elements sent and received via H.323. Thus the host IP interface handles all the signaling whereas the specialized IP card manages the IP media streams in an IP telephony call. This is sufficient to enable normal messaging functions in installations where only IP interfaces are required. 

In circumstances where more advanced voice processing is required, specialized DSP resources are made available on a separate DSP resource card via an H.110 bus. These situations include text-to-speech conversion, Automatic Speech Recognition and cases where voice messages were recorded in one format and are being retrieved and must be transcoded to a different format for playout.

The application component is not affected because the lower layers hide the details of the interfaces below. It is not until new converged applications are implemented that this component will be altered. Lucent Technologies, their Service Provider customers and ISVs will all use the APIs exposed by lower layers to create these innovative vertical and horizontal applications. Those applications will naturally avail themselves of both the PSTN and IP interfaces, making Unified Messaging broader and richer for both Service Providers and their end customers.

9.	Summary

IP Telephony is the revolutionary technology driving the convergence of the worldwide voice and data infrastructure. The IP Telephony market is experiencing explosive growth based on the potential of the converged infrastructure, which holds the promise of better economy, increased efficiency and revolutionary innovation. 

Although the IP Telephony market is currently fueled by advantages such as toll-bypass and efficient voice-data integration, in the long run value-added services will be the primary driver behind its growth. Service differentiation will be the key factor that distinguishes the market leaders. 

The tremendous growth in this market has attracted many players, both new and old. The competition is extremely intense and is only likely to grow over time. With the deregulation of the telecommunications industry and the low barriers of entry, IP Telephony has also seen a proliferation of non-traditional operators. These include Competitive Local Exchange Carriers, Internet Service Providers, Cable Operators, Application Service Providers and many others. 

In such a fiercely competitive marketplace, Unified Messaging provides a powerful means to distinguish the service offering and get ahead of the competition. Unified Messaging is the leading revenue-generating enhanced service in the market today and is growing at a tremendous rate. Unified Messaging naturally combines voice and data and provides a powerful platform for exploiting the multimedia capabilities of the network. By allowing end users to create and access any type of messages from any communication endpoint of their choice, Unified Messaging provides the flexibility and ease of communication that end users desire.

Lucent’s AnyPath Unified Messaging System provides the features and capabilities desired by Service Providers to enable messaging in their networks. AnyPath is a reliable, scalable and feature-rich platform that will provide instant feature parity with existing PSTN messaging services. It interfaces with both PSTN and IP networks seamlessly, in order to facilitate the gradual transition from circuit switched to packet based networks. AnyPath’s flexible distributed architecture and powerful service creation environment enable the rapid deployment of applications, while incorporating new features as they gain momentum in the IP Telephony and UM markets. The scalability offered by AnyPath lets Service Providers centralize their messaging resources and use a more economical IP transport to save costs.

The AnyPath organization is active in developing partnerships with entities both within and outside Lucent in order to build a messaging solution that integrates well along with the other elements in a customer network. It is actively working with customers in different market segments to understand their specific requirements and partner with them to develop a product that best meets their every messaging need. The organization’s extensive experience in messaging and vast knowledge base in IP Telephony technology makes it a strong partner for Service Providers striving to get ahead of their competition.

AnyPath brings to the table the best in Bell Labs innovations and Lucent’s proven network grade reliability to offer a Unified Messaging solution that will protect customers’ investments and add value to their networks for years to come.

Contacts:

For further information concerning AnyPath UMS, partnership opportunities or IP-based messaging, contact:

Mohammed Raziuddin
AnyPath Systems Engineering
408-324-5323
mrazi@lucent.com

Phil Harris
AnyPath Product Development
303-538-1305
philharris@lucent.com