New software from Lucent Bell Labs is designed to let internet telephony gateways from different vendors interoperate with one another and with traditional telephone networks. According to Lucent, incompatibility problems have frustrated IP telephony vendors and prevented them from offering their customers transparent services. Lucent’s PacketStar IP Service Platform is intended to address those issues for traditional carriers expanding into IP telephony, startups building IP networks and internet service providers (ISPs). Lucent claims that as well as resolving compatibility issues, PacketStar works as a software switch to public telephone networks. With the switch, IP telephony providers can offer their subscribers intelligent network services like call waiting, forwarding, billing and operator assistance. Written in Java, PacketStar should run on most servers. Beta trials are slated to begin later this month. The product will have its public debut in October at Networld+InterOp in Atlanta, Georgia.
