Frost & Sullivan's 2006 Product Innovation Award in the field of VoIP interoperability has been presented to Piscataway, N.J.-based Telcordia Technologies, Inc. for their development of the Telcordia VoIP Routing Registry.

The Telcordia VoIP Routing Registry facilitates cross-carrier VoIP calling, a feature that is increasingly driving consumer adoption of IP-based communication services. The registry is part of the Telcordia® Maestro IMS portfolio, a powerful set of wireless, wireline and converged products, services and applications that enables carriers to offer any service, over any network, via any device.

As VoIP traffic and subscribers grow and VoIP carriers proliferate, cross- carrier routing administration becomes exponentially complex and expensive. Currently, inter-carrier VoIP calls or IMS-enabled services using telephone numbers are not routed entirely through IP facilities, but rather are routed via the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN).

"Against this backdrop, Telcordia's VoIP Routing Registry provides a mechanism to centrally administer IP routing data so that inter-carrier VoIP calls can be efficiently routed over IP," notes Frost & Sullivan research analyst Amit Jain. "The VoIP Routing Registry helps carriers migrate their VoIP traffic off PSTN facilities and provides a flexible and powerful way for carriers to exchange their VoIP routing data."

Consequently, this helps carriers improve their profitability by reducing the amount of access charges they pay to their interconnection partners. It also positively influences the introduction of new, native IP services that require end-to-end IP connectivity, allowing carriers to better differentiate themselves. In other words, the VoIP Routing Registry can help wireline, wireless and cable carriers cost effectively offer IMS-enabled converged services, such as short messaging services, multimedia messaging services, push-to-talk services and video services, over IP networks.

The VoIP Routing Registry incorporates a host of sophisticated features, including:

• Support for 6 and/or 10-digit routing administration;
• Full integration of PSTN and IP data, allowing efficient routing administration for PSTN-PSTN, PSTN-VoIP, VoIP-PSTN, and VoIP-VoIP calls that can result in reduced operational expenditure (OPEX);
• Flexible routing administration based on a carrier's policies and business rules;
• Operation capability with multiple vendor's IP/IMS platforms; and
• Provision of secure data access and management.

"To summarize, the Telcordia VoIP Routing Registry represents an integrated solution employing both PSTN and IP routing data, which enables a smoother transition to VoIP call routing administration and minimizes incremental VoIP operating costs," says Jain. "This solution is currently in trials at Tier 1 service providers and cable carriers and the company has filed a provisional patent and has several technical collaborations with other companies in support of multi-vendor interoperability."

Each year, Frost & Sullivan presents the Product Innovation Award to the company that has demonstrated excellence in new products and technologies within their industry. The recipient company has shown exceptional innovation by launching a broad line of emerging products and technologies.