Welcome to another Light Reading project aimed at helping everybody get a better understanding of a rapidly evolving marketplace – in this case, VOIP infrastructure equipment, understood here to be the main items of plumbing for telco next-generation voice and multimedia networks.

As with previous Who Makes What reports, this article proposes a taxonomy, lists vendors, and invites readers to suggest improvements, point out omissions, and generally lend a hand in building a comprehensive view of what is going on in terms of products and vendors.

CALL TO ACTION: A questionnaire to enable vendors to categorize their products using the taxonomy of this Who Makes What can be downloaded by clicking on this link.

DEADLINE: Please submit your entry BEFORE AUGUST 31 to make sure your company’s products are included in the launch version of the directory.

Here’s a hyperlinked summary of the remainder of this report:

• Page 2: Overview of VOIP Infrastructure
  Provides a big picture of the shape of carrier VOIP infrastructures and how this Who Makes What classifies the main components and products.
• Page 3: Consolidated Vendor List
  Shows all the vendors so far included in the taxonomy pages, and invites readers to name vendors that should be included in this survey or comment on vendors already listed. This is intended to be a growing list, and we don’t claim to have included everybody from the start. So please let us know who’s missing.
• Page 4: Softswitches
• Page 5: Access Media Gateways
• Page 6: Broadband-Based Access – Multiservice Access Platforms (MSAPs) & Integrated Access Devices (IADs)
• Page 7: Trunk Media Gateways
• Page 8: Session/Policy/Feature/Bandwidth Control
• Page 9: Application Servers
• Page 10: Media Servers
• Page 11: Signaling Gateways
• Page 12: VOIP Test & Measurement Equipment

To comment, simply post your suggestions on the message board linked to this article. This is the preferred input method, but you can also contribute by email, addressed to [email protected]. Please include "VOIP Infrastructure" in the subject field to help us identify your comments.

We will update the report in response to reader input, so if your company has been left off any of the lists by mistake, or you have any suggestions for improvement of the taxonomy, please get in touch. The initial version of the report represents our best effort at producing a directory, but we need your feedback to make it comprehensive.

This report dovetails with a previous Who Makes What report covering VOIP applications software (see Who Makes What: VOIP Applications Software). This earlier report forms the basis of Light Reading's IP Services Software Directory.

— Tim Hills is a freelance telecommunications writer and journalist. He's a regular author of Light Reading reports.

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Previous Light Reading Who Makes What reports:

• Who Makes What: MSAPs & IP DSLAMs
• Who Makes What: IP DSLAMs
• Who Makes What: Security Appliances
• Who Makes What: Telco Video
• Who Makes What: OSS Update
• Who Makes What: Infrastructure Equipment
• Who Makes What: ROADMs
• Who Makes What: VOIP Applications Software
• Who Makes What: Optical Components 2004
• Who Makes What: Electronic Chips
• Who Makes What: OSS
• Who Makes What: Equipment 2003

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CALLING ALL SUPPLIERS OF IP SERVICE SOFTWARE:
Make sure your company and products are listed free of charge in Light Reading's IP Services Software Directory, which already lists products from more than 100 companies, by completing this questionnaire.

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CALLING ALL VOIP SERVICE PROVIDERS:
Make sure your company and services are listed free of charge in Light Reading's VOIP Services Directory, now being compiled, by completing this questionnaire.

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