Network architectures for the 21st century

The future belongs to the service providers who invest in new network architectures. Continuous innovation is easier, but the new architectures call for significantly different ways of running the telephone and cable businesses. The network architecture forms the main infrastructure to meet the enterprise networking needs of the next century. Today's telephone networks treat switching, transmission, and operations systems as distinct disciplines. The usually respectable tendency towards caution in adapting to change would suggest that new technologies be mapped into this methodology. This is not possible. The deployment of the telecommunications management network (TMN) illustrates the problem; it was so slow in coming due primarily to its complexity and the inertia of legacy systems. Distinctions between switching and transmission equipment disappear as network elements become software-based. Incorporating network management functions in the network elements can make operating a network easier. Only a radical change of mindset can hope to provide the necessary cost benefits and ease of use. The full-service network requires a new nodal architecture; one possibility is shown. A shared access infrastructure featuring a connection control layer connects network services and management to the modules which provide intelligent network capability, such as call setup, routers and transport. Connection control provides the pathways for a combination of these modules to work together to perform traditional network functions.