Aculab

Last updated
Aculab
Company type Private
Industry Telecommunication
Founded1978
FounderAlan Pound
Headquarters Milton Keynes, United Kingdom
Website www.aculab.com

Aculab is a privately held, UK-based limited company that was founded in 1978. It is a designer, developer and manufacturer that specialises in providing API-driven, enabling technology sub-systems for telecommunications related OEM products such as are used in fixed line PSTN, wireless and VoIP networks. Aculab's products are sold worldwide, primarily through direct sales and also via the reseller channel. Aculab's headquarters and R&D facilities are located in Milton Keynes, UK. It has a branch office in Norwood, Massachusetts, USA.

Contents

Brief company history

In 1978, Aculab was a design consultancy involved in the music industry. Soon after the first microprocessors were introduced, it began to design and manufacture intelligent interfaces and controllers for computer peripherals. In 1988, Aculab turned to building analogue speech processing sub-systems for a number of clients, such as British Telecom.

In 1991, Aculab began to ship the first E1 interface cards for the UK and German markets. These PC Industry Standard Architecture (ISA) form factor cards enabled PC-based speech processing products to be connected to digital public switched telephone network (PSTN) networks. The expansion of its product capabilities to include the physical interfaces and telecommunications protocols (Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN), channel-associated signaling (CAS) and Signaling System 7 (SS7)) needed to reach a broader, worldwide market, helped to establish Aculab as one of the pioneers of the computer telephony industry. [1]

Later, in 1997, Aculab introduced its own ISA speech processing board, the first of its portfolio of digital signal processor (DSP)-based voice boards. And it was in 1998 that Aculab introduced a Peripheral Component Interconnect (PCI) product, the first combined trunk card and voice board – Prosody PCI. It was novel for its time, delivering up to 240 speech channels and 4 E1/T1 trunk interfaces on a single card at a time when the standard was 24 to 30 channels. [1] A Prosody cPCI (CompactPCI) version followed in 2000.

During 1993, Aculab introduced Groomer, a protocol converter that enabled interconnection between disparate telephone networks running incompatible protocols. In 2002, the product was relaunched as GroomerII, a signalling and media gateway that can be used for connection between equipment and applications deployed in time-division multiplexing (TDM) and Internet Protocol (IP) networks. Aculab's GIII gateway is the third generation evolution in the product line.

In 2003, Aculab introduced Prosody S, a host media processing (HMP) alternative to traditional, DSP-based voice boards, for IP-based OEM products. [2]

The ApplianX range of gateways was launched by Aculab in 2007. [3]

Aculab Cloud - a cloud-based telephony API service platform - was launched in 2011.

Currently offered products

Prosody X

Prosody X is a DSP-based media processing platform that offers the low level functions and technologies typically used by OEMs in their end-user product lines. Those enabling technologies include VoIP, SIP, fax, conferencing, and narrow and wideband (HD Voice) codecs. Aculab's DSP-based platforms include integral E1/T1 interfaces with CAS, ISDN and SS7 signalling and protocol support. Aculab's SS7 stack includes ISUP, signalling monitoring, and non-call related TCAP signalling functionality.

Prosody S

Prosody S is an IP-based, software-only host media processing (HMP) product that offers a range of media server technologies, including VoIP, SIP, T.38 fax, conferencing, and narrow and wideband (HD Voice) codecs, under a software licence.

The GIII gateway

The GIII gateway is a signalling and media gateway, primarily intended for the service provider and the Emergency_service markets. The gateway enables interworking between SIP-based networks or ESInets, applications and entities, and legacy, TDM-based wired and wireless networks running CAS, ISDN or SS7 (C7) protocols. The GIII gateway is the successor to Aculab's long-established GroomerII gateway, and was introduced in the spring of 2018.

ApplianX

The ApplianX IP Gateway is an enterprise scale gateway offering interoperability between SIP-based networks and entities, TDM-based PBXs and the PSTN. The gateway includes SIP, QSIG and DPNSS interworking functionality, with Supplementary Services support, which capability is needed by the legacy enterprise PBX/IP-PBX market in the UK (with DPNSS) and elsewhere (with QSIG). [4]

Aculab Cloud

Aculab Cloud is a telephony API platform-as-a-service that presents the user with Java, Python, C# (.NET), and RESTful APIs, enabling interactive voice, fax, speech technologies (ASR and TTS), and messaging applications to be written in high-level, general purpose programming languages. Developers can use Aculab Cloud to add telephony functions to their business applications or create telephony services or applications such as: IVR; conferencing; voicemail; broadcast fax; SMS; voice messaging services; PBXs; and predictive diallers.

VoiSentry

VoiSentry is an API-driven Speaker recognition system that enables verifying by voice in applications where there is a need to remotely authenticate callers' identities. VoiSentry was announced in 2017 [5] and is available as 'GA' from Q2-2018.

Related Research Articles

The Digital Private Network Signalling System (DPNSS) is a network protocol used on digital trunk lines for connecting to PABX. It supports a defined set of inter-networking facilities.

The Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) is a signaling protocol used for initiating, maintaining, and terminating communication sessions that include voice, video and messaging applications. SIP is used in Internet telephony, in private IP telephone systems, as well as mobile phone calling over LTE (VoLTE).

Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), also called IP telephony, is a method and group of technologies for voice calls for the delivery of voice communication sessions over Internet Protocol (IP) networks, such as the Internet.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Media gateway</span>

A media gateway is a translation device or service that converts media streams between disparate telecommunications technologies such as POTS, SS7, Next Generation Networks or private branch exchange (PBX) systems. Media gateways enable multimedia communications across packet networks using transport protocols such as Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) and Internet Protocol (IP).

The public switched telephone network (PSTN) is the aggregate of the world's telephone networks that are operated by national, regional, or local telephony operators. It provides infrastructure and services for public telephony. The PSTN consists of telephone lines, fiber-optic cables, microwave transmission links, cellular networks, communications satellites, and undersea telephone cables interconnected by switching centers, such as central offices, network tandems, and international gateways, which allow telephone users to communicate with each other.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Asterisk (PBX)</span> PBX software

Asterisk is a software implementation of a private branch exchange (PBX). In conjunction with suitable telephony hardware interfaces and network applications, Asterisk is used to establish and control telephone calls between telecommunication endpoints such as customary telephone sets, destinations on the public switched telephone network (PSTN) and devices or services on voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) networks. Its name comes from the asterisk (*) symbol for a signal used in dual-tone multi-frequency (DTMF) dialing.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Analog telephone adapter</span> Type of telephone adapter

An analog telephone adapter (ATA) or FXS gateway is a device for connecting traditional analog telephones, fax machines, and similar customer-premises devices to a digital telephone system or a voice over IP telephone network.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Business telephone system</span> Telephone system typically used in business environments

A business telephone system is a telephone system typically used in business environments, encompassing the range of technology from the key telephone system (KTS) to the private branch exchange (PBX).

The IP Multimedia Subsystem or IP Multimedia Core Network Subsystem (IMS) is a standardised architectural framework for delivering IP multimedia services. Historically, mobile phones have provided voice call services over a circuit-switched-style network, rather than strictly over an IP packet-switched network. Various voice over IP technologies are available on smartphones; IMS provides a standard protocol across vendors.

An Internet telephony service provider (ITSP) offers digital telecommunications services based on Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) that are provisioned via the Internet.

Direct inward dialing (DID), also called direct dial-in (DDI) in Europe and Oceania, is a telecommunication service offered by telephone companies to subscribers who operate private branch exchange (PBX) systems. The feature provides service for multiple telephone numbers over one or more analog or digital physical circuits to the PBX, and transmits the dialed telephone number to the PBX so that a PBX extension is directly accessible for an outside caller, possibly by-passing an auto-attendant.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">VoIP phone</span> Phone using one or more VoIP technologies

A VoIP phone or IP phone uses voice over IP technologies for placing and transmitting telephone calls over an IP network, such as the Internet. This is in contrast to a standard phone which uses the traditional public switched telephone network (PSTN).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Eicon</span> Business enterprise

Eicon Networks Corporation, formerly Eicon Technology Corporation, is a privately owned designer, developer and manufacturer of communication products founded on October 12, 1984 with headquarters in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Eicon products are sold worldwide through a large network of distributors and resellers, and supplied to OEMs.

T.38 is an ITU recommendation for allowing transmission of fax over IP networks (FoIP) in real time.

A telephony system based on host media processing (HMP) is one that uses a general-purpose computer to process a telephony call’s media stream rather than using digital signal processors (DSPs) to perform the task. When telephony call streams started to be digitized for time-division-multiplexed (TDM) transport, processing of the media stream, to enhance it in some way, became common. For example, digital echo cancellers were added to long-haul circuits, and transport channels were shaped to improve modem performance. Then, in the mid-‘80s, computer-based systems that implemented messaging, for example, used DSPs to compress the audio for storage, and fax servers used DSPs to implement fax modems.

An IP PBX is a system that connects telephone extensions to the public switched telephone network (PSTN) and provides internal communication for a business. An IP PBX is a PBX system with IP connectivity and may provide additional audio, video, or instant messaging communication utilizing the TCP/IP protocol stack.

SunComm Technology Co. Ltd. is a Taiwan multinational computer technology and GSM Voice over IP gateway manufacturer. The main products in 2010 focused on GSM VoIP gateways & IP surveillance camera devices. Core members have been engaging in the communication & networks industry since 1977.

VaxTele SIP Server SDK is a complete development toolkit, which allows software vendors and Internet telephony service providers (ITSP) to develop SIP Server and (SIP) Session Initiation Protocol based VoIP systems for Microsoft Windows to install computer to computer voice chat, chat rooms, IVR systems, call center services, calling card services, dial/receive computer to PSTN and mobile phone calling services.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Media gateway control protocol architecture</span>

The media gateway control protocol architecture is a methodology of providing telecommunication services using decomposed multimedia gateways for transmitting telephone calls between an Internet Protocol network and traditional analog facilities of the public switched telephone network (PSTN). The architecture was originally defined in RFC 2805 and has been used in several prominent voice over IP (VoIP) protocol implementations, such as the Media Gateway Control Protocol (MGCP) and Megaco (H.248), both successors to the obsolete Simple Gateway Control Protocol (SGCP).

References

  1. 1 2 Pulver, Jeff (December 2006). "VON Pioneers". VON Magazine pp 14-18. Archived from the original on 2007-10-05. Retrieved 2009-11-17.
  2. ↑ "Aculab Announces Development of Host Media Processing Resource". Speech Technology Magazine. 2003-09-01. Retrieved 2021-03-04.
  3. ↑ "Aculab Launches Applian - Press Release". Speech Technology Magazine. March 20, 2007. Retrieved 2009-11-18.
  4. ↑ Viscusi, Stefania (September 15, 2008). "Aculab Brings Hope to Enterprises with the ApplianX DPNSS-to-Q.SIG Gateway". TMC website VoIP Developer Channel. Retrieved 2009-11-18.
  5. ↑ "Aculab to Release VoiSentry Biometric Speaker Verification". Speech Technology Magazine. 2017-03-17. Retrieved 2021-03-04.
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