Multiplex communications – Communication techniques for information carried in plural... – Adaptive
Reexamination Certificate
1999-04-14
2001-11-13
Patel, Ajit (Department: 2662)
Multiplex communications
Communication techniques for information carried in plural...
Adaptive
C370S395430, C370S410000, C370S351000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06317438
ABSTRACT:
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
This invention relates to telecommunications and, more particularly, to a system and method for providing peer-oriented control of telecommunications services through the use of an application level or “logical level” control mechanism.
BACKGROUND
The deregulation of telephone companies, or Telcos, has lead to increased competition. In many cases, Telcos and other carriers, are freed by statute to offer to any other competitor with carrier status, substantial discounts designed to level the competitive playing field for the network access or bandwidth delivery portion of the access market. Then more bandwidth is available at a cheaper price than was previously possible. However, bandwidth and services are often bundled together and sold. Thus, many of the savings and benefits of the cheaper bandwidth are not realized by the user.
Thus, there is a need for an application level or logical level control mechanism for communication services used in support of various peer-oriented types of applications. There is also a need for a control mechanism that is orthogonal to the underlying native control mechanisms of the network being used. In other words, the control mechanism would function regardless of the intervening control mechanisms of the network. This capability allows application developers to use network services as components of their applications with minimal concern for the implementation of those services. Thus, the cheaper bandwidth may be purchased from telcos, without the added costs of attached services.
These needs will become apparent from the following text. For a number of years now, telecommunications and networking have been assuming increasingly strategic roles supporting the fundamental structure and operation of companies. One milepost that may be noted on this evolutionary path comes from an article in Business Week magazine published in the issue of Feb. 8, 1993. This article entitled “The Virtual Corporation” popularized the discussion of management concepts and practices that had been discussed in organizational management literature and practiced to varying degrees by organizationally sophisticated companies for some time. The introductory comments on the topic printed on the magazine's cover provided the framework for considering the topic:
Big, complex companies usually can't react fast enough. Small, nimble ones may not have the muscle. What's the answer? A new model that uses technology to link people, assets, and ideas in a temporary organization. After the business is done, it disbands. It's called the virtual corporation. Just another management fad—or a vision of the future?
Although the seeds of recent telecom and networking phenomenon are present within these introductory words, the current explosion of technologies, products, and variations for their strategic and tactical use was not fully foreseen or understood or at least was not expressed at this point in time.
In today's business environment, there is not so much of a revolution as there is a super accelerated evolution in the economic and information fabric in which business operates. Information accessibility and electronic connectivity combine to provide the equalizer on the frontier of global business and economic opportunity. As communication and networking technology developers seek to keep up with the escalating demand for more dynamic and easier communication capabilities, there is a shift in their market orientation. This shift in technology providers' approach to their market may be viewed as an indication of underlying environmental forces which will favor significant architectural changes in the structure of networks and the mode of creation for network services supporting collaborative applications.
In looking at the primary market approach, two fundamental orientations can be identified: the technology push and the application pull. The technology push orientation says “tell us what your network-related problems are and we will show how to solve them using a set of products.” The application pull says “here are application level solutions to problems that your business currently has or is likely to have based on the evolution of the business environment and this solution is currently implemented using a set of products.” The technology push is traditionally associated with manufacturers and generic networking resellers and integrators, whereas the application pull is normally associated with the true vertical market specialists.
Projecting the technology push and application pull orientation into the solution mindset of target market potential customers highlights the two corresponding dominant customer orientations: network centric (associated with the technology push orientation) and application centric (associated with the application pull orientation). Telcos and Competitive Access Providers (CAPS) can be used to illustrate these points for network resource providers, but it is important to realize that similar distinctions exist within end-user organizations where the network support organization generally holds network centric views, whereas the operating business units generally hold application centric views.
The network supplier market as represented by Telcos and CAPS, especially in the U.S., provides an interesting example with which to illustrate significant aspects of these differing orientations to the potential customer solution evaluation process. Since the start of deregulation and the opening of network access to competitive pressures, there has been an evolutionary force, i.e. competition, at work on the structure and basic business positioning of Telcos and businesses that would compete against them. Prior to the start of open competition for the network access market, the Telcos, as well as their limited competitors the CAPS, can be characterized as holding primarily what has been called network centric views of solutions. Characteristic of this view is the bundling of service and feature differentiators with combinations of “raw” bandwidth delivery infrastructures to create “products” which would be sold in a manner consistent with the technology push orientation. A case can be made that much the same situation currently exists within the network support groups that currently support the network infrastructures upon which the applications of large, medium and increasingly small companies are deployed.
With the coming of open competition in the network access markets, however, pressures of the new business environment have caused a fundamental shift in the structure and the business approach of such organizations. Specifically, what had been the service and non-connectivity related features of the “product” (aggregately identified as the “product differentiators”) are rapidly being separated from the bandwidth delivery infrastructure and moved into non-regulated business units that function at the retail level and which compete with resellers, network integrators, and vertical market specialists. This evolution has been caused largely by new regulatory statutes that force the Telcos, or any other carrier, to offer to any other competitor with carrier status, substantial discounts designed to level the competitive playing field for the network access or bandwidth delivery portion of the access market.
This business environment situation has started an irreversible shift in the value creation chain for telecommunication services in which the biggest “added value” link will shift from the “wires” business associated with bandwidth transmission and delivery to the “product differentiator” services and features. The monolithic product set once associated with the telecommunications industry has been split into an interoperable bandwidth transport and delivery access infrastructure commodity and a separate service/feature creation opportunity that has significant potential for differentiation and value creation. This evolutionary transformation, which is now underway, has significant implicati
Coursey R. Steven
Patel Ajit
Troutman Sanders LLP
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