XML Based Service Provisioning in Converged Voice and Data Networks

Diploma Thesis from the year 2001 in the subject Electrotechnology, grade: 1,7, University of Ulm, language: English, abstract: In today¿s world, there are mainly two types of communication networks: circuitswitched networks and packet-switched networks. The current telephone networks are mostly based on the circuit-switched networks, whereas the Internet is mainly based on the packetswitched networks, which are also called IP networks. However, there is a strong tendency to combine both of these networks, which points to the direction that the IP networks are going to replace services provided by current telephone networks. This would eventually mean that IP networks might replace the telephone networks, in the future.

Following are some reasons why IP networks seem to replace the circuit-switched

networks:

· First of all, the IP networks provide cheaper communication. Considering that

the Internet access is nearly free, the cost advantage of IP networks gets clearer

[25].

· Secondly, IP networks provide the ability of integrating the data and voice

applications, and even some other applications, like video-conferencing,

integrated voice mail, e-mail, and the like [26].

· Another important reason is that IP networks allow open implementation of

end systems. With a reasonable programming knowledge everybody could

implement an end system for IP networks. In the classical telephony end users

cannot implement any end system, but have to use whatever provided by the

service providers. [27]