NOTIZIE ITALTEL

THE 21ST CENTURY STARTS IN LONDON

Four days in London to define Next Generation Networks and avant-garde developments in IP protocol based services.

A few months after the Broadband World Forum Europe in Venice and Cisco Systems' Networkers in Cannes, Italtel was back to present its own technological solutions and experience gained in the Next Generation Networks (NGN) field at a prestigious international event.

The occasion was the 21st Century Communications World Forum, the inaugural meeting of vendors, operators and technology for ICT, held in London from 21st to 24th February 2005.

Italtel was present in the British capital with its IN-BVS (Integrated Networked Business Voice Solution), the system for Internet Service Providers developed in collaboration with Cisco Systems, uniting Italian softswitch i-SSW technology with the Californian producer's IP Communication package.

The Italtel booth could be found right next to its strategic partner, Cisco Systems, in an exhibition space created to enhance a program packed with appointments and meetings.

An encouragingly new climate

Daniele Magni, Italtel's marketing director for the EMEA market, came away with the impression of a new and very encouraging climate: "Interest is growing and is now much more evolved. Interest in NGN is more concrete: not just talk but also investment. It hasn't just been a case of seeing which way the wind is blowing here, but taking a position and getting down to work. Sure, there's still a lot of hesitating, but by now we've gone beyond purely academic definitions, which tended to be used until just a few months ago to talk about New Generation Networks. I've clearly sensed the general desire to move in this direction."

Italtel's demo organization combined solutions for multimedia communication, Web telephony and cooperative working, carried out through a remote link with the demo center in Milan. "Whoever came to us - Magni underlines - did so because they were aware of our successes. Compared to the aggressive presence of some of the more daring companies, like Huawei's booth, which surpassed everyone else's, we, without needing a lot of bright lights and colors, were able to present a system which is now considered the best at a European level. That's what counts for us."

What's slowing VoIP down

Daniele Magni also participated in one of the seminaries that marked the London appointment, dedicated to the barriers slowing down adoption of Voice over IP.

Sitting besides the Italian marketing director were Ran Avital, ECI Telecom's head of marketing solutions; Jon Evand, Cisco Systems' consulting engineer; Opher Kahane, president and CEO of Kagoor Networks; and the chairman, Yuval Sahar, senior manager of the Cisco Systems broadband and midrange edge business unit.

During the discussions, the most recent examples of technology thought out to ensure quality of service, session tracking and adherence to European norms were all examined. One of the most complicated problems found was the need for a Voice over Internet Protocol service provider to also guarantee acceptable end-to-end quality for users connected through an access network different to theirs.

Daniele Magni, in reality, prefers to talk about IP telephony to differentiate the quality level from simple voice. He's optimistic: "Today there are no technological and competence-availability barriers to leave doubts in the minds of service providers as to which road to take. Technology and ability are there, all that's needed is to choose a technological partner for NGN investments able to guarantee scalability, adherence to international legislation and ease of integration with existing business management platforms. A few years ago you heard people say: will it work? Will it be easy to operate? Will it offer savings? Will it give me a competitive advantage? By now, all of these things have been ascertained: case studies guarantee that going in this direction will bring savings, achieving the same quality and obtaining the same tracking, as well as it will offer the opportunity to enter the world of new generation value-added services, able to attract and retain customers, increasing operators revenues."

The real obstacle, if any, is another, Magni says: "The final obstacle is with the user, but this is in the hands of the Service Providers, and this is what should be concentrated on, that is to define bundles of next generation services (NGS), customized according to users types and supported by aggressive communication campaigns, that will be able to attract and convince end-users."