Bellcore last week renamed itself Telcordia Technologies Inc. and unveiled a suite of products
designed to meet the needs of next-generation networks that will converge voice, video and data services, said the
company.
The company, founded in 1984 to provide engineering, administrative and other services to the Regional
Bell Operating Companies, was required to change its name after it was bought by Science Applications International
Corp. in 1997. The company will be allowed to use the phrase “formerly Bellcore” for six months before it
must cut all references to the Bell name.
The company said the new name is meant to reflect its ties to the
telecommunications industry and an ability to reach “accord” among major communications service
providers to allow seamless network interconnection.
Telcordia said it believes two events are shaping the
telecommunications industry-deregulation, which has created competition in the industry, and the transition from
circuit-based network architectures to packet-based architectures, which has created new data and multimedia services.
Next-generation networks will require service providers to interconnect different networks that transmit voice, data,
cable and Internet services as well as new services such as electronic commerce, unified messaging and voice-over-
packet services using a single network, said the company.
Telcordia’s new direction includes providing consulting
and engineering services to its customers as well as providing new software products and operation support system
capabilities beginning in June.
The company’s consulting services include business assessment, network design and
engineering, integration services, product engineering support and education services-all designed to assist providers in
transforming their legacy and hybrid public switched telephone network systems to next-generation networks.
On
the software side, Telcordia’s Call Agent software acts like a local office “virtual” switch, housing the
intelligence for call control features and functions, said the company. The Call Agent software combined with Internet
Protocol gateways eliminates the need for circuit switches and helps to reduce costs, added the company.
Also
scheduled to ship later this year is Telcordia’s OSS suite, which will support automatic provisioning, service assurance,
service activation and network management. The OSS suite will support both packet- or cell-based networks in
addition to existing circuit-switched networks, said the company.
Telcordia has been providing next-generation
network services and software to Sprint Corp. for its Integrated On-Demand Network and to Canadian cable provider
Le Groupe Videotron Ltee.
Telcordia also has launched an initiative to develop generic requirements for voice-
over-packet architectures.
