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.S. local telephone companies are at the threshold of a massive transformation. Customer demand, competitive forces and technology are coming together to reshape the network faster — and more profoundly — than ever.
The big ticket is the installed base of nearly 24,000 central office switches that is obsolete and must be replaced. Circuit switches designed for voice traffic are giving way to lower-cost packet softswitches and access gateways that can handle multimedia traffic.
Circuit-to-packet conversion, or C2P, is a total network upgrade, not a box replacement. The architectural and element design differences between packet switches and today's circuit switches have profound implications for the amount of physical space required, and for the associated DC power systems.
In both cases, less is more. We estimate that 70% of the 24,000 local telco switches are smaller than 5000 lines. So, C2P is predominantly a small power plant market.
Packet switches are composed of a set of discrete electronic elements that may or may not be collocated. The mainframe nature of a circuit switch dictates specific space, and power requirements. Engineering packet switches is a more adaptive process. The servers and gateways that compose the switch can be adapted to various CO environments, and different host/remote configurations. Softswitches replace the call processing functions in the host. Access gateways will displace the remote switches and terminate the lines.
For instance, a softswitch node comprises several servers handling different functions such as call processing and feature sets. A softswitch application in a large CO configured for 15,000 lines will occupy about 1/5 the space of an equivalent circuit switch. Moreover, the power demand for the node will be flat at less than 10 kW for a 0-15,000 line application versus a power load that increases with line additions.
Gateways that will terminate access lines also occupy about 1/2 the space and draw about 1/2 the power per line as conventional line card modules. Gateways can be collocated with the softswitch node in a CO, or they can be installed in the field in huts or controlled environments vaults (CEVs), and in climate-controlled cabinets. Gateways typically will require small DC power plants of several hundred amps at -48 VDC.
When a circuit switch is replaced, telco engineers will look closely at upgrading the DC power system at the same time. In a CO, the requirement for a large, centralized DC power system up to 10,000 A -48 VDC is greatly reduced. Rather, CO power will be distributed in a modular fashion, and will be located nearer to the equipment it serves. Power modules of up to 2,000 A, -48 VDC likely will serve a wide variety of distributed softswitch applications. Five of the top 10 North American telcos have announced C2P programs. The rest will follow soon. In the end, the telephone network will be transformed into something vastly different than what it is today. Understanding the mix and make-up of the installed switch base will offer some unique opportunities for DC power systems suppliers.
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Provided by John M. Celentano, President of Skyline Marketing Group, a telecom market analysis firm. John is co-author of "A Switch To Packet: U.S. Central Office Switch Market Brief," and "An Excess of Access: U.S. Access Equipment Market Brief."
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