TABLE OF CONTENTS One of the most promising aspects of softswitch architecture is that its flexibility in scaling makes so many revolutionary applications possible. Given this flexibility in scaling, it is now possible to bypass the central office. A point of presence (POP) for a long-distance company can now consist of a four-port media gateway. As addressed in Chapter 2, "The Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN)," the Class 4 switch scales to approximately 100,000 ports. For mainstream service providers, the term "scalability" is an interrogative for "how big" does the product in question scale to. They have traditionally thought in terms of large, centrally located, and managed switches. A large platform often translates into a lower-cost-per-port expense for the service provider. Scalability for a softswitch is contingent on two elements: the total number of ports and the call-processing capabilities. The softswitch industry, and the media gateway industry in particular, is only recently introducing high-density gateways that compete with the Class 4 and 5 switch in terms of port density (see Figure 6-1).
Scalability as regards the total number of ports is contingent upon the media gateway. In 1998, the author sold media gateways that totaled 168 ports per platform. This was the most densely populated product of its kind at the time. "Racking and stacking" these would not prove difficult, but managing them would. Also, the real estate costs of having so many...
