Overview

Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) products in various forms has been available for about a decade. To date, VoIP enjoys a market share of less than 10% of the US residential voice market. For a number of reasons, VoIP growth is about to begin a dramatic, "hockey stick" growth curve. At the forefront of this development is the softswitch. Firstly, legacy time division multiplexing (TDM) switches such as the Lucent 5ESS or the Nortel DMS series are no longer being sold in any quantity in the US market. The last "fleet" sale of such switches was to the "old" AT&T in 1998. The giants of the telecommunications switch industry (Nortel and Alcatel-Lucent, for example) have long since moved on to promoting their VoIP-oriented softswitches. Secondly, incumbent telcos large and small seek "investment protection" for the billions of dollars of TDM switches in their inventories through various technology band aids. However, the harsh reality is that the majority of US-based TDM switches will have to be replaced in the next 5 years if their service providers are to remain competitive as the telecom world moves to Internet Protocol-based technologies. Finally, the emergence of new IP-base service providers drives demand for all-IP networks utilizing softswitch for voice services.

This boiler plate request for proposal (RFP) has been used by large and small telecommunications companies in the US and Latin America including incumbent network operators making the switch to softswitch. The use of this RFP spares the services provider many man-weeks necessary to write its own detailed RFP. More importantly, this RFP poses the right questions that can mean the difference between triumph and disaster to the requesting party. Service providers who have used this softswitch RFP for their multimillion-dollar evaluations and purchases have expressed a high degree of satisfaction in the RFP and the purchases they made based on the guidance contained in the RFP.

Target Audience

• Any organization interested in procuring a Softswitch
• Network operators migrating to next generation network (NGN) architecture
• Consultants and systems integrators assisting organizations in obtaining a softswitch
• Providers of long-term NGN infrastructure such as IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) equipment
• NGN infrastructure providers including Softswitch, and related equipment such as Session Boarder Controllers (SBC)

1.0  General and Administrative Provisions

2.0  General Requirements

3.0  Purchaser Executive Summary

4.0  Class 5 Services Requirements

5.0  Class 4 Services Requirements

6.0  General Switching Platform (Class 4/Class 5) Information

8.0  Session Border Controller (SBC)

 9.0  Billing Platforms

10.0 Warranties and Maintenance Contract

11.0 Implementation and Operation

12.0 Pricing

Frank Ohrtman has almost 20 years experience in VoIP and wireless applications. He is the president of WMX Systems, LLC, a Denver, Colorado-based consulting and systems integration firm. Mr. Ohrtman learned to perform in-depth research and write succinct analyses during his years as a Navy Intelligence Officer (1981-1991) during which he specialized in electronic intelligence and electronic warfare. He is a veteran of U.S. Navy actions in Lebanon (awarded Navy Expeditionary Medal), Grenada, Libya (awarded Joint Service Commendation Medal), and the Gulf War (awarded National Defense Service Medal).

His telecommunications career began with selling VoIP gateway switches for Netrix Corporation to long distance bypass carriers. He went on to promote softswitch solutions for Lucent Technologies (Qwest Account Manager) and Vsys (Western Region Sales Manager). His consulting clients include national governments and tier one telephone companies.

Mr. Ohrtman is a Gerson Lehrman Group Scholar (http://www.glgcouncils.com) and serves as Dean of WiMAX for Applied Learning Solutions (http://www.e-als.com). He is a regular blogger and contributor to WiMAX.com (http://www.wimax.com) and annual presenter at WiMAX World (http://www.wimaxworld.com) as well as local Cisco Users Groups. Mr. Ohrtman serves as an advisor to Bush Telecommunications Pty Ltd and the Rural Broadband Consortium of Australia.

Mr. Ohrtman holds a Master of Science degree in Telecommunications from Colorado University College of Engineering (master's thesis: "Softswitch As Class 4 Replacement-A Disruptive Technology"), a Master of Arts degree in International Relations from Boston University and a Bachelor of Arts, Political Science, from University of Iowa

Frank may be reached at Frank@MindCommerce.com