Abstract
This paper traces the evolution of the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) and the role-played by digital transmission & switching, ISDN, and ATM during the course of this evolution. Having set the stage for the current network architecture, the features and the network fit of the main entities in today's network like Softswitch, media gateways (MGs), Remote Digital Terminals (RDTs) etc. are also analyzed. The later portion of the paper gives a description of the US carrier market and the requirements of the five main application segments - Internet offload, Class 4/5 replacement, wireless and CATV, in which the NGN network architecture is used. The paper concludes by stating the benchmarks for NGN equipment, most of which directly follows the requirements of the various application segments.

Authors Sivaram S Ranjith Mukundan

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