26. October 1999

TINA Announces Communications Market Advances during its Beijing Conference

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The TINA (Telecommunications Information Networking Architecture) Consortium held its latest semi-annual meetings in Beijing China during the week of October 18, 1999. TINA-C celebrated acceptance of its first industry-proposed specification for an "IN Adapter". Senior executives from TINA-C member companies and representatives of the Chinese industry had the opportunity to exchange perspectives and discuss telecommunications technology during the meeting. The Consortium meetings were hosted by CIC (China Institute of Communication) and supported by the Information Industry Ministry of the People's Republic of China.

The IN Adapter specification links the SS7 world to TINA through TINA/Parlay APIs. "This Application Interface propels the current telecommunications infrastructure into an open services rich future and ubiquitous implementations over fixed, mobile, IP and VoIP networks" said Martine Lapierre, Division Vice President of Alcatel. She continued "We are capitalizing on TINA within our product line."

The consortium established a Fast Track procedure to match the speed of change in the industry. This will also facilitate small companies to develop TINA compliant products. "Sprint wants a market of TINA compatible products to assure that ION will provide services beyond our competitors. We’re pleased that at this meeting TINA-C has decided on a fast-track procedure to make that market happen" said Eric Nielsen, Chief Service Architect for Sprint.

The Centre For Development Of Telematics (C-DOT), the Telecom Technology Centre of the Government of India, announced the availability of an ATM switch with 'TINA-inside'. The switch will go into service at the end of this year to support the national multi-service ATM network.

Dr. Sadahiko Kano, Executive Advisor to NTT Corporation and President of TINA-C said "I am very proud to say that good ideas created by TINA are finally coming into the market as products". Dr. Kano also noted that the TINA DPE will be available soon to help implement TINA components. "Expersoft, a Vertel company, is actively engaged in developing a complete TINA compliant DPE based on its carrier grade CORBA ORB (e*ORB) and will deliver DPE related products to the TINA market place early in year 2000.", said Mr. Chandra Gollamudi, Engineering Manager, Expersoft.

TINA announced its agreement to have several joint Request for Proposals with the Object Management Group (OMG). The Consortium also announced its plans for representation to Study Group 11 (Switching and Signaling) of ITU, Multiservice Switching Forum, International Softswitch Consortium, and Parlay.

This week of meetings followed the events of Telecom 99 in Geneva, where 'TINA-inside' products were demonstrated by France Telecom, KPN, Alcatel, and Expersoft. "The demonstrations proved how 'TINA-inside' brought improved quality of service and user friendly interface. ", said Paolo Coppo, Manager, ICT Collaborations, CSELT, Italy and Chair of the Consortium Technical Forum.

THE TINA CONSORTIUM IS AN INDUSTRY FORUM OF OVER 40 OF THE LARGEST TELECOM OPERATORS, NETWORK EQUIPMENT, COMPUTER HARDWARE AND SOFTWARE PROVIDERS. IT IS DEVOTED TO PRODUCING THE GUIDELINES AND SPECIFICATIONS REQUIRED FOR OPEN NETWORK AND SERVICE ARCHITECTURE. For more information, please contact ceo@tinac.com and visit us at http://www.tinac.com/

Acronyms

TINA: Telecommunications Information Networking Architecture
DPE : Distributed Processing Environment
CORBA: Common Object Request Broker Architecture
ORB: Object Request Broker
ION: Integrated On-demand Network