NMS Communications' Convergence Generation 6500C high-density IP/PSTN media platform is designed to enable wireless and wireline value-added services.

by Wayne Kawamoto [June 20, 2002]

NMS Communications recently introduced its Convergence Generation CG 6500C, a platform for PSTN and IP media servers that need high density and scalability within service provider and enterprise environments. According to the company, its CG 6500C is the optimal platform for offering value-added, enhanced services such as conferencing, voice portals, next-generation prepaid calling, virtual personal assistants, and voice-activated dialing.

Furthermore, since it packs into a single-board platform, it may offer up to four times the trunk capacity and three times the processing power of other platforms.

According to the company, key features found in the CG 6500C include:

• More high-density trunks (up to 16, software-selectable between T1 and E1), up to 9600 MIPS of digital signal processor (DSP) power, PICMG 2.16 compatibility, and increased co-processor power with the addition of a PowerPC co-processor.
  
  
• Support for scalable, high-capacity applications requiring 120 ports or more, including media servers supporting up to 480 ports of IVR, voice over IP gateways with up to 360 ports per slot, and IP media servers running NMS PacketMedia.
  
  
• Integrated PSTN interfaces, telephony protocols, comprehensive IVR functionality, full-duplex echo cancellation, speech encoding, fax processing, fast Ethernet interfaces, packet protocols, low-latency media streaming, and full support for the PICMG hot-swap standard.
  
  
• Support for Windows, Intel, SPARC Solaris, and Linux platforms.

An early CG 6500C user is InfoUSA of Encino, California, which offers conferencing, telephone calls, messages, faxes, e-mail, and a range of other services to customers via a single (local or 800) telephone number.

According to Stuart Scammen, InfoUSA's chief technical officer, "To provide a seamless package of enhanced communications services to our customers, we need all the capabilities that NMS platforms provide. The density of the CG 6500C adds a compelling economic advantage by offering the lowest price for full capabilities supported per T1 trunk that I have seen in the industry."

Availability and pricing
The CG 6500C is currently available for customer evaluation. NMS chose not to release pricing information for this article.

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