November 01, 2005
IPCC
The International Softswitch Consortium was founded in 1998 to further the deployment of next generation switching and VoIP technologies. The consortium is now known as the International Packet Communications Consortium (IPCC) and covers video over IP and services accessed through wireless and wireline networks. The IPCC works to facilitate VoIP and softswitch deployment by utilizing the services of service providers, system integrators, etc who define reference architectures and management systems.
One of their key contributions of IPCC is the Reference Architecture, available here. There are four functional planes referred to as Transport, Call Control and Signaling, Service and Application, and Management. These define the functions of a VoIP network.
The transport plane provides functions such as call setup and call signaling. The technology used for ferrying the media may vary. Packets are transported across the VoIP network using IP Transport Domain that holds devices like routers and switches. Signaling gateways, media gateways, and interworking gateways make up the Interworking Domain, which interacts with networks outside the VoIP network. Access or residential gateways connect non-IP terminals such as ISDN or mobile phones to the VoIP network.
The establishing and tearing down of media connections in a VoIP network is handled by the Call Control and Signaling Plane. The media gateway controller or the call agent functions in this plane.
Devices like the application server and the feature server are present in the Service and Application Plane. This plane enables the control and logic functions that can be availed on the VoIP network. The Management Plane co-ordinates with the other planes using the SNMP protocol. It enables services necessary for service provisioning and billing.
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