ABSTRACT
The problems of interconnect in Next-Generation Network (NGN) are complex, spawning a new industry of session border controllers managing firewall functions, protocol conversion, session proxying, and topology-hiding. “The last really big replacement program British Telecom (BT) did was the analogue-to-digital switch conversion. A key feature of the analogue-to-digital conversion was that all customers saw massive immediate improvement in their service with touch tone signaling, reduced line noise, shorter post-dialing delay and the availability of supplementary services. The operational and changeover challenges faced by 21CN are therefore very different to those faced in the analogue to digital conversion, with many more internal system interfaces and processes to be accommodated. To gain full benefit from the NGN transition they would need to radically overhaul their associated processes and systems just as BT are doing. Inevitably this will take considerable time and money and as a result, despite the need, the NGN business case is unlikely to be really compelling.
