CHICAGO--Nortel unveiled a new, smaller softswitch this week aimed at the small- to medium-sized service provider market. The Nortel Communication Server 1500 (CS 1500) can be seen at Globalcomm and will begin field trials in the fourth quarter.

Although many small providers aren’t ready to jump into an IP multimedia subsystem (IMS) architecture, said Rob Scheible, senior marketing manager for carrier VoIP and multimedia at Nortel, the new softswitch design lays the foundation for future IMS deployments in that space.

“We know where IMS is headed in the industry, so we’ve designed the CS 1500 with IMS in mind,” Scheible said.

To attract both greenfield and replacement opportunities for the new gear, Nortel also introduced new Global Services that help smaller service providers deploy new IP-based services.

Jake Casey, executive vice president of Citizens Communications, a full-service communications provider serving the rural and small town markets, said in a statement that Nortel’s CS 1500 would help his company satisfy its customers’ communications needs today and expand its network to support more advanced services in the future. After the fourth-quarter field trials the product will be generally available in selected global markets during the first quarter of 2007.

The CS 1500 core control, gateways and operations, administration and maintenance (OAM) interfaces are all housed in a single AdvancedTCA chassis solution. Service providers can deploy the switch for end-office (Class 5) and Access Tandem (Class 4) applications. It also offers the full range of legacy network interfaces and regulatory requirements, including E-911 and CALEA.

“We have learned quite a bit over the last 5 years about VoIP technology, and we have packaged that into an extremely cost-effective, compact version for the small and medium-sized carrier,” Scheible said. “It takes up less floor space, less power and uses advanced technology such as the ATCA chassis. And it runs on a carrier-grade UNIX operating system with thousands of hours out in the field running well beyond 5-nines reliability.

Nortel has been integrating ATCA in to a number of its products, including wireless and the DS2000 softswitch. “Utilizing ATCA as a base technology is a corporate technology direction for us,” Scheible said.