What's Planned for 2008?
Expect big things from Commetrex in 2008, including
an expanded product offering. We will continue to build on
our fax heritage with a suite of new offerings including
Email-to-Fax and Print-to-Fax solutions. In addition, we
are planning to roll out a series of new boards including
the previously announced MSP-H8 and
MSP-640, as well as new ISDN boards, primarily focused
on the European marketplace. Finally, our VoiceXML
strategy will continue to evolve with the release of our
VoiceXML browser in late Q2.
2008 will be an exciting year at Commetrex.
Happy New Year from all of us! May it be healthy and
prosperous for you.
Air Force Files OTF Kernel Flight Plan
A telecom-equipment test activity of the US Air Force
has a massive test load. Much of the equipment under
test, and, therefore, the test equipment, is ISDN-based.
In order to meet its test schedule, the Air Force decided
that it needed a flexible way to connect any article under
test with any piece of equipment in its test lab. It needed
a special ISDN switch with some very special and
configurable routing rules. Not only is there a need to
support the existing huge installed base of ISDN equipment,
but the move to IP-based systems is already underway,
requiring that any system developed to support TDM to
TDM connections today must soon support SIP-to-ISDN,
and SIP-to-SIP, and do so using vendor-independent
network-connectivity resources.
The answer? Commetrex'
Open Telecommunications Framework® Kernel
Why OTF Kernel? Because OTF Kernel is the only open telephony
middleware designed specifically to be resource
independent, to support multiple applications with
resource sharing, and provide basic PBX (port-to-port)
switching capability.
OTF Kernel achieves its resource independence by
isolating signaling, switching, routing, and media-processing
resources, which are vendor specific, behind "resource
service managers (RSMs). Since the RSMs use generic
protocols to communicate with the system kernel, the
applications are also resource independent.
For this system, Commetrex developed an RSM to
support the Cantata NS301 Octal CompactPCI DS-1
interface board. Support for a higher-density (16 DS-1s)
Dialogic board, followed by Commetrex' standard
SIP RSM, will follow.
The system's call-routing application extracts the called
number from the ISDN signaling and directs the call to
the desired trunk route. A table is used to determine
the appropriate routing algorithm. Operations include
stripping or adding digits to the called number, number
substitution, and the ability to statistically route calls.
Read more about
OTF
or e-mail sales@commetrex.com.
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BladeWareVXML, a VoiceXML Interpreter That Rocks!
As you may recall, earlier this year Commetrex
introduced BladeWareVXMLInterpreter,
our new-and-improved version of OpenVXi, the
open-source VXML interpreter from Scansoft.
Our version is also open-source, and available
for download from SourceForge.
We use the same APIs as OpenVXi--good news for
current VXi users--but we've also added some
major enhancements. (This is for the techies in
the crowd.) It's VoiceXML 2.1 compliant. It includes
a DTMF recognizer. It has enhanced MRCP integration
capability and has an SRGS grammar parser with
SISR support built-in. In addition, we made some
significant changes to enhance performance,
including limiting the number of Xerces parsers
that are created and compressing the JavaScript
files used by VoiceXML 2.1 element. We
also deferred loading the JavaScript until a
element is actually hit by the interpreter. We have
just released version 4 and version 5 is planned for
early next year.
But here is the big news: Initial testing by
customers has shown performance improvements
of 5-10 times over previous versions of OpenVXi.
Here is the skinny:
Configuration: 2 dual-core CPUs - Intel(R) Xeon(R)
CPU 5160 @ 3-GHz; 4-GB RAM
Results: 1000-channel test: 500 30-second
calls delivered to each channel required
an average total CPU usage of only 10%.
A commercial version,
BladeWareVXMLCommercial Edition, is now available
from Commetrex, which includes
support and commercial licenses.
A full VoiceXML browser is planned for Q1, 2008.
If voiceXML is in your future plans, take BladeWareVXML
for a test drive and you be the judge!
Need more information? Please e-mail Tom Ray,
EVP Sales & Marketing, at tray@commetrex.com
or call at 770-407-6025.
Some very serious testing
Although nothing beats 13 years in the field
to improve interoperability, we've recently
subjected our T.30 protocol engine and fax
modems, including our newly developed
(but based on Paradyne's 11-years-in-the-field
data-modem technology) V.34 fax modem
to the most-rigorous testing possible, and
we passed everything. Well--yes--we did
have to fix a few things along the way.
Prior to telecom deregulation in the EU,
Germany's rigorous FTZ 18TR53 test standard
was mandatory for all fax terminals sold in
Germany. With the relaxation of official mandatory
requirements, 18 manufacturers, including
Alcatel, Canon, and IBM, developed a fax-terminal
interoperability test suite called the "Definitive
Tele-Facsimile Standard" or DTS. With 1339
different tests, DTS is even more rigorous than
the original FTZ 18TR53, so if your technology
can make it through, as ours did, you can be
assured of the ultimate in interoperability.
We've also performed extensive testing with
QualityLogic's FaxLab, which we used during
our V.34 development project. In addition,
QualityLogic ran our T.30 and fax modems through
their "TSB-85 Fax Functional Test Suite." TSB-85
was developed by the Electronics Industries
Alliance for much the same purpose as DTS.
According to QualityLogic, "TSB-85 covers all
of the standard T.30 flowchart branches and a
considerable number of its error-recovery
schemes." Commetrex' fax technology passed
all of the TSB-85 tests as well.
Want to know more? Give Cliff Schornak a call
at 1-770-407-6027.
So, what did we have to do to set that up?
Nothing except get a broadband connection
in the UK, which was hard enough. After one
month of begging the incumbent, Virgin had
it done in a week.
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