Evolution trend and future prospect of exchange technology

After more than 10 years of hard work, China has built the world's largest public telephone network (PSTN), and based on circuit switching technology is always the most important equipment in the network, but also China's telecommunications equipment manufacturers Rapid take-off of the breakthrough. However, when the mobile phone users in our country more than the fixed telephone users this year, the traditional circuit switches are also beginning to face more tests, on the one hand, the development of technology, make people more optimistic about the development of NGN based on SoftSwitch technology, on the other hand, The reality of China's large-scale network construction has also cast a shadow on the development of the traditional switch market, in which case, how should we recognize and judge the development trend of the switch market?

How far are we from NGN?

In recent years, the NGN technology based on SoftSwitch has developed rapidly. This year, more equipment manufacturers have announced the introduction of NGN solutions and announced a number of application projects. NGN is also the consensus of experts is the future development of telecommunications network direction. As a trend, it is believed that the SoftSwitch device of NGN will gradually replace the traditional switch and become the main equipment of network construction. However, although the trend is obvious, but when NGN or SoftSwitch products will start to enter the market on a large scale?

From this year's market situation, although the NGN based on SoftSwitch technology has made great progress, some products are also in the local market began to deploy, but it is undeniable that, in general, the NGN in the technology and the market continues to improve the development.

First, the technical standards of NGN are still evolving, many problems, such as SoftSwitch and the traditional Exchange network signaling interoperability and many other issues have not been completely resolved. Second, different manufacturers of standards and the understanding of the relevant agreement is still very different. It also takes time to solve many problems such as interoperability of different factories and equipments. In fact, these problems are not solved, the large-scale adoption of the network is more difficult. In other words, only a few manufacturers mature equipment is not enough to promote the overall development of the market. The network interoperability and interoperability of the solution is actually very difficult. This is with the voice service-oriented traditional switching network has a huge difference, that is, in the traditional switching network of some business systems, different manufacturers of equipment between the unicom is not easy, not to mention the need for more open interface of NGN products. Third, the establishment of NGN network business standards is also a difficult problem. Business standards are immature, operators to launch the business can not be widely promoted, the effectiveness of the network can not really play. At present, the application form of NGN is more like "island". Finally, SoftSwitch networks have advantages over traditional networks in terms of service delivery, but this advantage does not yet reach the level of traditional switching networks, that is, people do not find a "killer" level of NGN applications. The more important problem is that the voice services offered by the existing traditional telecommunications exchange networks are still the main source of revenue for operators, and that huge investments in the past still play a role. For fixed-network operators, this income structure does not change, they will not abandon the original network. Therefore, some experts believe that only the return of circuit exchange is not valuable to operators, SoftSwitch can be used, and experts predict this time may be around 2010.

In short, although the introduction of NGN more and more manufacturers, the proposed solution has been relatively rich, but it is believed that the timing of large-scale launch of the NGN network has not yet arrived.

How big is the market potential of traditional switch?

In the context that NGN is not yet likely to enter the market on a large scale, people actually rely on the development potential of traditional exchange networks to promote business development. In that case, the switch market based on circuit switching technology, how much room for development?

Based on the analysis of the development of China Telecom network in recent years, not only the capacity of local exchange equipment providing basic business is growing, but also the market of long-distance exchange equipment, which has been slowly increasing, has been increased in the north and south by China Netcom respectively. From the statistics of 2002, the National new Bureau with local exchange equipment 30.91 million doors, new long-distance exchange equipment 694,000 Road end. Although there is no reliable statistical data for this year's market situation, market experts generally believe that although the construction of fixed-network operators has shifted, the market will still maintain a certain market size based on circuit-switched exchange equipment.

First, although traditional switches have many weaknesses in new business development, in recent years, many telecom equipment suppliers have done a lot of work in upgrading the switch products. It should be said that today's switch products have changed a lot in many ways than before, this transformation has been started since 2002, through the upgrade, the original fixed-switching devices can support N-ISDN, the local network major switches and long-distance switches have the functions of the Intelligent network SSP, Since 2002, new switching devices have added some packet switching functions, and so on. These changes, coupled with intelligent network, value-added services platform, and many other ways, in fact, the current China's switching network to the new business support capacity has been greatly improved. And from the current fixed network operators of value-added services to develop the way, mainly rely on the transformation through the traditional exchange network to carry out. In other words, the full use of the potential of the existing network, through the improvement of technology can still create new value for operators.

Second, under the influence of market competition, China fixed network operators pay special attention to the development of wireless local telephone network in recent two years, hope to use the original Exchange network ability, realize the value-added of the network, this will drive the market growth of related products of exchange network, including value-added service platform and other products market development. It is noted that in this regard, operators are still using the most sophisticated traditional exchange technology. With the growth of wireless local telephone products, especially the gradual start-up of the market of wireless local telephone products based on China's SCDMA technology, the market of related products including Exchange network products will be gradually increased. In view of China Telecom and the Chinese netcom in the fixed network through the wireless local technology infiltration of the conditions gradually mature, it can be foreseen that the traditional exchange technology-related products in the next two years will have a certain growth potential.

Third, due to the voice business in China's telecommunications business in a very long period of history will not be a big change, therefore, operators will fully develop the existing mature traditional exchange network potential, and equipment providers will not be free for operators to replace the network for NGN. Therefore, in the original based on the expansion of the transformation and network optimization, become operators and manufacturers of the common choice, therefore, the traditional exchange products in the market or in technology will have a lot of growth space.

Finally, from the equipment manufacturer's point of view, although China's rapid growth of the market has passed, but China's enterprises are beginning in the international market, especially the third world market shows obvious advantages. China's products in terms of price and quality has been increasingly showing advantages, at the same time, our enterprises in the business development and the advantages of providing also effectively enhance the market competitiveness of our products.

The above analysis shows that, whether from the angle of investment or business development, the NGN network based on SoftSwitch technology replaces the traditional telephone exchange network, which will be a very long process. Therefore, it is a wise choice to dig deep into the potential of the existing network and to protect the investment of users fully.

As for how to tap the potential of traditional networks, it is a problem that we urgently need to study seriously. Some experts believe that the key is to focus on the business, overcome the traditional network in the business delivery weaknesses, such as slow business generation, lack of flexibility and other issues, in addition to the use of smart Network to provide value-added services, but also through the establishment of value-added business platform, can be more flexible to provide users with a wide range of business. At the same time, we should also pay attention to the upgrading of traditional switching equipment to make it easier to transition to the NGN network in the future. In addition, strengthening technical innovation in the terminal area is the key to making the traditional Exchange network play a greater advantage.

Of course, in the full play of the traditional network potential, we must pay full attention to the development of NGN research. But the starting point of our research should be more from the business point of view, blind speculation can not promote the early arrival of the era of NGN, we for the NGN technology unresolved issues must be given full attention and down-to-earth efforts, so that the development of the NGN will become a reality.