Data Connection Announces SS7-over-ATM Support -- DC-MetaSwitch is the first converged network software product to support Q.765 and VTOA SS7-over-ATM voice standards.

LONDON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Dec. 1, 1999--

Data Connection Limited (DCL) today announced it is extending its highly successful DC-MetaSwitch multiprotocol multiservice software product to provide support for SS7-over-ATM. DC-MetaSwitch is primarily targeted at network equipment suppliers building converged voice/data switching equipment - and the SS7-over-ATM feature is aimed at those carriers who are under pressure to migrate PSTN voice traffic over their existing ATM data backbone networks.

DC-MetaSwitch provides a highly scalable and fault tolerant source code solution for use in a range of devices from carrier-class multiservice backbone switches, to IP telephony gateways and access switches, through to enterprise IP telephony gateways.

The Q.765 and VTOA standards developed within ITU-T SG11 and the ATM Forum specify mechanisms for carriage of SS7 signalling and PSTN voice traffic over ATM backbone networks. The standards define how voice circuits from TDM trunks are mapped to and from ATM SVCs and AAL1 or AAL2 cell streams at the originating and terminating switches. They also set out how the separate MTP2 / TDM network, traditionally used to carry the SS7 signalling messages, can be replaced by a number of SAAL (Q.2140) links running over the same core ATM network as the voice and data traffic.

"Carrier data networks are still predominantly ATM rather than IP, mainly because ATM provides built-in QoS" said Mike Evans, Director of Data Connection's IP Telephony Group. "While carriers will move to IP/MPLS over time, their most immediate requirement is to migrate PSTN voice traffic onto their ATM backbones. The Q.765 and VTOA standards help them to do that in a transparent, interoperable and cost-effective manner, while preserving the end-to-end SS7 semantics underlying value-added features such as 1-800, Local Number Portability (LNP) and advanced supplementary services. We are seeing enormous interest in this capability from carriers and backbone equipment vendors, and the DC-MetaSwitch SS7-over-ATM feature helps our OEM customers meet those requirements."

DC-MetaSwitch is an integrated multiprotocol multiservice platform providing interworking and media control for DCL's SS7 and ATM product suites (DC-SS7 and DC-ATM SS7), and VoIP products (DC-SIP, DC-H.323 and DC-Megaco). DC-MetaSwitch also provides integrated call services, such as routing and addressing, usage metering and security, plus platform APIs to enable service providers to deploy value-added services such as multi-media conferencing, unified messaging and directory.

This announcement adds support for interworking between SS7 signalling and SS7-over-ATM signalling, with full management of media terminations for both TDM trunks and ATM virtual circuits. The DC-MetaSwitch SS7-over-ATM feature is available in Q2 2000.

DC-SS7 is suitable for use in a wide range of devices from traditional telco switches to ATM and IP telephony gateways (VTOA/VoIP) and the infrastructure for 3rd generation wireless networks (IMT-2000 and UMTS). The DC-SS7 product family includes the narrow and broadband Message Transfer Parts (MTP3, MTP2, SAAL), ISDN User Part (ISUP), Signalling Connection Control Part (SCCP) and Transaction Capabilities Application Part (TCAP). Support is provided for a wide range of national and international variants including those defined by the ITU, ANSI, ETSI and ATM Forum.

DC-ATM provides the industry leading implementation of the ATM standards, including UNI signalling, PNNI routing, Call Control, ILMI, SoftPVCs, and client and servers for LAN Emulation (LAN-E), Multiprotocol-over-ATM (MPOA) and classical IP over ATM. DC-ATM is used in many of the industry's leading devices, ranging from high-end, distributed, fault tolerant terabit switches to DSLAMs and embedded devices which view ATM as just a "fat pipe".

DC-MetaSwitch, DC-SS7 and DC-ATM all run within DCL's portable, non-blocking, message passing execution environment (the N-BASE), which facilitates flexible distribution of protocol components across a wide range of hardware configurations from DSPs to line cards to specialised signalling processors. Combined with DCL's High Availability Framework, this provides the performance, scalability and reliability required for the most demanding carrier applications.

DCL's converged network products have been ported to a large number of operating systems including VxWorks, pSOS, Chorus, Nucleus, Solaris, HP-UX, Windows NT and other proprietary operating systems. They have also been used on all common processors including i960, Motorola 860, PowerPC, Sparc, IDT and MIPS. Proprietary operating systems and chipsets can be supported with minimal effort.

About Data Connection Limited

Data Connection Limited (DCL) is the leading independent developer and supplier of ATM, SS7, MPLS, Internet Telephony, Conferencing, Messaging and Directory, and SNA portable products. Customers include 3Com, Cabletron, Cisco, Fujitsu, Hewlett-Packard, Hitachi, IBM Corp., Microsoft, NCR, Nortel Networks, SGI and Sun. Data Connection is headquartered in London UK, with US offices in Reston, VA. It was founded in 1981 and is privately held. During each of the past 18 years profits have exceeded 20% of revenue. Last year sales exceeded $30M, of which 90% were outside the UK, mostly in the US, leading to the company's second Queen's Award for outstanding export performance.

For information, contact Tony Downes at [e-mail], phone [phone], or visit http://www.datcon.co.uk/switch/switchidx.htm

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