TABLE OF CONTENTS What is the origin of the term and technology of softswitch? The term softswitch was coined by Ike Elliott when he worked for MCI to develop an interface for Interactive Voice Response (IVR) with a circuit switch. In 1997, Mr. Elliott left MCI to join a new startup, Level3 Communications, a pioneering all- Internet Protocol (IP) backbone communications company.
There he teamed up with Andrew Dugan and Mauricio Arongo, a team that went on to coin the terms call agent and media gateway. At this time, no major telecom vendor offered technology referred to as a media gateway controller (MGC), which would be crucial to Level3's plan to roll out an all-IP backbone. Decision makers at Level3 decided early on in their history to develop their own softswitching technology rather than wait for telecom vendors to offer technology compatible with their goals. In early 1998, Level3 began discussions with a company called Xcom, which had developed technology for managed modem service. This technology enabled a softswitch specification for a message interface between a softswitch and a modem bank, which is what Internet service provider (ISP) subscribers dial into to access the Internet. Xcom's specification was a device control protocol. In April 1998, Level3 purchased Xcom for $165 million in stock. After that, Level3 renamed their newly acquired protocol the Internet Protocol Device Control (IPDC) and founded the IPDC Technical Advisory Council (TAC).
In September 1998, Level3 teamed with...
