Advanced services: Changing how we communicate

This paper introduces three next-generation collaboration services designed to restore the human social interactions often lost in geographically distributed work environments. These services-TeamPortal(TM), Connectlcon(TM), and OpenChannel(TM)-will be delivered as a trial and demonstration system on the service access, mediation, and management (SAMM) platform. SAMM technology allows service providers to use the standard Lucent Softswitch to add converged voice and data services to their networks by employing service frameworks. These frameworks handle service interactions, including service session management; operations, administration, maintenance, and provisioning (OAM&P) and billing. As examples of new revenue-generating services, the collaboration services demonstrate the advantages of a packet-based core network. This type of network provides always-on communication that creates an awareness of the presence of other team members and enables instant meetings and World-Wide-Web-based meeting areas for geographically distributed teams. SAMM, which interfaces with the Lucent Softswitch through the Java* Telephony Application Programming Interface (JTAPI), takes advantage of all available means of establishing communication, including "plain old telephone service" (POTS), text-based messaging, and voice over IP (VolP) using softphones, session initiation protocol (SIP), and ITU-T H.323 endpoints.