Verizon begins shift to packet-based voice calls

Stephen Lawson, IDG News Service   Today’s Top Stories   or  Other Networking and Internet Stories  

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July 3, 2002 (IDG News Service) -- Telecommunications service provider Verizon Communications has begun using an Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM ) backbone to carry some voice calls, a step in the carrier's first migration to a new switching technology in about 30 years.
Setting up gateways between Verizon's traditional circuit-switched network and its ATM backbone, which previously had been used only for data traffic, kicks off a move toward IP telephony that should lead to lower costs and a more resilient network, as well as integrated voice and data services, according to Phil Harrington, program manager for Verizon's voice trunking over ATM project.
"This is the first time in 30 years we've moved to a next-generation switching architecture," Harrington said. The last such migration took place in the 1970s, when carriers converted from crossbar electromechanical switches to digital switches.
Traditional voice networks use a specific, "nailed-down" circuit over a certain path for each call. Calls carried over an ATM or IP network are broken down into cells or packets, which can be sent more easily over different paths, depending on current capacity and bottlenecks. Those cells or packets can also be mixed with data to make more efficient use of a single network. Cell and packet networks generally are less expensive to build and are easier to expand with just the capacity that is needed.
New York-based Verizon set up Nortel Networks Corp. Multiservice Gateway 4000 devices in interoffice facility hubs in Newark, N.J., and Tampa, Fla., to convert calls to ATM cells and put them on the ATM backbone. Trunks carrying calls from multiple central offices go into the hubs. The network also uses Nortel Succession Communication Server 2000 packet-based voice switches and Passport 15000 Multiservice Switches for ATM transport, according to Verizon.
The carrier is already using the system for some of its internal management calls and in Florida is using the ATM network to carry some voice calls from third-party users of its network, which include competitive local exchange carriers, mobile phone operators and other kinds of service providers.
In addition, Verizon plans to use the ATM backbone for its customers' calls when they overflow the capacity of regular switches. These usually amount to 10% to 20% of calls and so far have been carried over supplemental circuit switches. Legally, the carrier can't put its own overflow on the ATM network until it has made voice trunking over ATM available to other service providers, Harrington said.
Shifting of voice calls onto the ATM network will be transparent to end customers, Harrington said. The service will be rolled out in several other locations over the next 18 months, according to a Verizon statement.
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