The Lucent Technologies Softswitch - Realizing the promise of convergence

The Lucent Technologies Softswitch was created as a result of Project Saras , which was initiated by two Bell Labs researchers. The purpose of Project Saras was to develop a software system that solves several major problems t hat providers of telephony services now face. Today's public switched commu nications infrastructure consists of a variety of different networks, techn ologies and systems, most of which are still based on the wireline circuit- switched structure. The technology, however, is evolving to packet-based ne tworks, and service providers need the ability to interconnect their custom ers with these flexible and cost-effective networks without losing the reli ability convenience, and functionality of the public switched telephone net work. The Lucent Softswitch, formerly known as the PacketStar(TM) IP Servic es Platform, resulted from a focus on these needs. This Softswitch was init ially marketed as a signaling-interoperability and services-creation platfo rm under the umbrella brand name PacketStar for Lucent data networking prod ucts. It was renamed in light of the recognition that it represented an eme rging concept in the industry called a "softswitch," referring to a softwar e-based distributed switching-and-control platform. This paper provides a h igh-level description of the Lucent Softswitch and its application to build ing next-generation converged networks.