Softil Embraces New Trends in the IP Communications Industry

Tentative steps to 5G-powered cars, augmented reality applications and robots, new standards bodies and a new generation of LTE-R compatible trains

Leading IP communications enabler Softil today released its first retrospective review of key developments of the industry in 2017 under its new entity as an independent, customer-centric company with a customer base of over 800 corporations world-wide.

“The year 2017 saw the IP communications industry take its first tentative steps outside the realm of rich person-to-person interaction with the development of 5G-powered communications such as autonomous cars for better use of highways, augmented reality to help police identify suspects in real-time and remote robotics in medical practices,” says Pierre Hagendorf, Softil’s CEO. “We are proud that Softil’s enabling technologies proved supportive to these and other 5G initiatives, which can only accelerate in the years ahead.”

Highlights:
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July 2017 saw the birth of Softil and the beginning of a new dynamic era aimed at continuing the legacy of RADVISION as a supplier of best-of the-breed solutions for developers of IP Communication solutions. These span enterprise telephony and video conferencing to cloud communication platforms, IMS/VoLTE/ViLTe/RCS solutions and Mission Critical communications over LTE and 5G.

Softil now brings IP developers a more customer-centric and agile philosophy in the development of next generation, mission-critical communications.

LTE-R compatible Olympic Trains

The year 2017 saw a new generation of communications for high speed trains entering service. They will be used at the Winter Olympic Games 2018. The BEEHD software development kit (SDK) was used by South Korea’s Hoimyung Corporation to build 3GPP MCPTT standard compliant mission-critical push-to-talk communication terminals for using LTE-R technology, a version of LTE specifically for the mission-critical operational and maintenance services of railway operators.

The BEEHD framework is LTE-R compatible and enables Hoimyung’s Train Radio Communication System (TRCS) terminals to deliver stable voice calls, video calls and data communications on trains running at speeds in excess of 250 km/h. Other train operators began trialing BEEHD with a view to introducing a wave of new high speed LTE-R compatible trains.

Birth of MCPTT PlugFests

Supported by the European Commission, the first Mission Critical Push To Talk (MCPTT) interoperability testing event took place in Sophia-Antipolis, France in June 2017 and was attended by over 20 vendors of MCPTT clients and infrastructure solutions. The purpose and scope of the event were to trial independently and jointly all components of the MCPTT communication supply chain. These include Mission Critical registration, authentication, affiliation group calls, floor control, mobile broadcast (MBMS) and more.

The event enabled vendors to assess the level of interoperability of their implementations, validate understanding of the standards involved, test real implementations and demonstrate end-to-end interoperability of solutions, debug implementation and promote the technology and the ecosystem. Softil technology was widely and successfully tested at the event to validate the interoperability of future MCPTT solutions coming to market.

3GPP and 5G standards

In 2017, The Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) accelerated its 5G work with the release of the first standard specifications for the 5G radio, called New Radio (5G NR).

Under its new entity, Softil joined the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) and 3GPP to support their missions of delivering best implementations of essential open standards and contributing to their content.

IMTC Merged with MEF Forum

With multimedia communications continuing to shift into the cloud, the International Multimedia Telecommunications Consortium (IMTC) merged with the MEF Forum to help advance cloud-based multimedia communications.

IMTC’s essential role in IP multimedia interoperability and market adoption dates back to 1993 with Softil’s grandparent, RADVISION, becoming a core member in 1996.

Softil joined the MEF Forum with its director of standards and products Anatoli Levine becoming an Advisory Director of the Board to continue the firm’s input to the development of recommendations for interoperable multimedia applications in the cloud-powered world. This follows his Presidency of IMTC over the past 11 years.