The Commetrex Outlook | May 2007

Commetrex Brings Telephony to Tensilica’s Xtensa Configurable Processors

Commetrex and Tensilica have formed a technology and marketing alliance to provide users of the Tensilica Xtensa 7 and Xtensa LX2 cores with voice and fax media technologies. Commetrex’ industry-leading fax technologies are now available, along with the OpenEndpoint package for terminating IP voice, to give the ASIC designer all the media technologies needed for products that require the termination and relay of TDM and IP in low-density endpoints.

Some of the Commetrex technologies now available to the Tensilica OEM now include:

A comprehensive voice-fax subsystem for the MFP
Fax Modems (V.21, V.27, V.29, V.17,and V.34)
T.30 protocol engine
Image conversion library
Fax Relay: T.38, I.366.2, FRF.11
TerminatingT38
Multi-Modal Terminating Fax (MMTF)
OpenEndpoint

The configurability of the Xtensa cores and the matching software development environment allow designers to optimize the processor for unique system requirements in a fraction of the time it takes to design and verify RTL. Combine this with Commetrex’ field-proven telephony technologies and your product is on the market before product management can say, “What’s taking so long?”

For additional information, contact us at 770-449-7775 (push 1) or sales@commetrex.com. For more information about Commetrex’ products, visit our website at www.commetrex.com. For additional information about Tensilica, visit their website at www.tensilica.com.

A Need Met: An Open-Source VoiceXML Interpreter For Telecom

Today, BladeWare is widely deployed as a fax media server. But nearly all of our customers have asked when we’ll have voice support available. Moreover, due to consolidations and product withdrawals, the media-server market is in need of an open-source VoiceXML interpreter. Commetrex is filling the product and market need with our latest product, BladeWareVXML Interpreter. As announced at VON Spring 2007, we will make BladeWareVXML Interpreter source code available on sourceforge.net as an open-source GPL download in early Q3.

A commercial version, with additional enhancements and support options, will be available from the Commetrex website in mid-Q3. The interpreter is an updated version of OpenVXi from Carnegie Mellon University, originally developed by Speechworks (Scansoft), with a number of enhancements made to the code, including a DTMF recognizer and a re-definition of the ASR/TTS layers to facilitate MRCP implementations.

BladeWareVXML Interpreter is the first product of a comprehensive open-source VoiceXML browser product offering, which will be available in late Q4. The addition of a VoiceXML capability to BladeWare is part of our overall development plan for BladeWare to add the voice component of the IMS-specified Media Resource Function Controller (MRFC) capability to our existing BladeWare fax MRF to form a comprehensive voice-fax implementation of the Media Resource Function (MRF). Commetrex’ VoiceXML offerings will be available both as stand-alone open-source components and as a fully integrated “voice browser.”

To read to press release, click here. And for more information about BladeWareVXML or any Commetrex product, contact contact us at 770-449-7775 (push 1) or sales@commetrex.com.

Iperia Chooses BladeWareTM For ActiveEdge

When Iperia needed a fax server for ActiveEdge, its component architecture for service networks, they came to Commetrex and chose BladeWare Fax Media Server. Iperia’s ActivEdge Fax enables subscribers to have faxes delivered directly to their unified mailbox. Subscribers can store fax messages, control when and where faxes are printed, send faxes from their mailbox to another subscriber’s mailbox or e-mail address, and send faxes to traditional fax machines. Iperia chose BladeWare Fax Media Server as a component of ActivEdge because it supports their open, distributed network architecture and the industry-standard protocols that ActivEdge uses.

BladeWare, an all-software media server, supports fax send-receive using both T.38 and G.711 pass-through faxes in SIP-based service networks, such as IMS. T.38 is the industry standard for the IP transport of faxes in real time. Since not all gateways and IP networks support T.38. But, the ability to support G.711 pass-through fax is important for a fax media server.

As many of our loyal Outlook subscribers know, BladeWare is an open-architecture media server that allows developers to use the BladeWare APIs to develop proprietary applications. BladeWare is also available with ready-to-deploy applications, such as Fax Media Server. FMS turns a BladeWare system into a network appliance that is IMS ready. This means that FMS is an IMS media-resource function (MRF) that is directed by application servers, such as ActivEdge Application Server, via the SIP protocol.

To read the joint Commetrex/Iperia press release click here. And for more information on BladeWare or any other Commetrex product solutions, contact us at 770-449-7775 (push 1) or sales@commetrex.com.

MSP-H8 FX S/O PCI Board Beta Program Announced

Telecom system developers and OEMs will be pleased to learn the new MSP-H8 FX S/O PCI board will be available from Commetrex during the second quarter 2007. The PCI board is a 4-, 6-, or 8-line analog PSTN network-interface resource for the BladeWare media server or as a hardware-only product for the OEM. The MSP-H8 FX S/O is intended for use in HMP systems that benefit from the high MIPS of today’s computers and that require support for both office and station interfaces on the same board.

The MSP-H8 FX S/O is designed for use in HMP systems. Although the board’s TI TMS320C5409 DSP is primarily used as an I/O processor and to manage the trunk interfaces, it can also support on-board echo cancellation and filtering. But the OEM can cost reduce low-density systems by using the host MIPS to do the heavy lifting of call-stream media processing. Moore’s Law has held for decades, but, by comparison, the MIPS needed to process a telephony media stream have only modestly increased, making host MIPS essentially free. This product empowers the OEM to take advantage of these economies, yet support the most demanding algorithms, such as Commetrex’ V.34 fax modem.

The MSP-H8 FX S/O includes four office interfaces (FXO) on the main board. There are two two-port daughterboard sites for either office or station interfaces, giving the OEM the option of supporting voice or fax terminals “behind” the server. Terminating and relay functions to and from the station and office ports can be easily implemented.

Pricing begins at $495 for the four-port board; the two-port daughterboards are $98 each. Commetrex also offers an embedded-developer’s SDK for the OEM that just needs a high-performance PCM interface board. However, for participating in our beta program, we are waiving the per-port software fee for the four-port version with V.17 fax support and halving the H8’s Embedded SDK for the OEM.

The beta program is limited to the first 15 participants, so please contact contact us at 770-449-7775 (push 1) or sales@commetrex.com to learn more and reserve your place in the program.

When Will We See The Last Gateway?

So, what’s Commetrex’ CEO been thinking about lately? SIP trunking, what else? And it’s the subject of his latest CEO letter, now posted in the “About Us” section of our Website.

As you know, SIP trunking eliminates gateways. But when it comes to technical inertia, telecom can’t be beat. So gateways aren’t not going away anytime soon. But we are seeing some movement, and the new SIPconnect recommendations providing the much of the driver.

In 2004, Cbeyond Communications led Avaya, Broadsoft, Centerpoint Technologies, Cisco, and Mitel to form the SIPconnect initiative. Their objective was to improve interoperability between SIP-based premises systems and SIP-enabled service providers to enable premises-based business systems to place and accept calls to and from the PSTN without gateways. The recommendation, which is available for download from www.sipforum.org, points out that all the necessary IETF RFCs needed for SIP trunking already exist, but the “sheer number of these standards documents, service providers, and equipment manufacturers have no clear ‘master reference’ that outlines which standards they must specifically support in order to ensure success.”

Want more? Read Mike Coffee’s latest CEO Letter.