SIEMENS Inc. has launched in the Philippines its Surpass networking solution which it claims would help local carriers fast-track the availability of convergent services to customers.

"Principally, you see convergence being rolled out everywhere," said Alexander Schulz, Siemens AG's director of Regional Sales Asia/Pacific for Carrier Switching Networks. "Customers are now forcing the carriers to do something about it."

Surpass is an open network architecture that allows carriers to migrate to voice over Internet protocol (IP) or voice over asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) services while leveraging their existing voice networks. Siemens claims that Surpass can help carriers more easily bridge the gap between the packet-based data world and the circuit switch-based voice network, meaning there is no need to throw away existing investments in network infrastructure. In the convergent world, the future lies in integrated, multi-service IP networks.

While Surpass also works with non-Siemens systems, the company also hopes to leverage on its large installed base of EWSD switches, as the global leader in providing this digital switching solution.

EWSD (Electronic Worldwide Switch Digital, or, in German, Elektronisches WaehlSystem Digital) is a widely installed telephonic switching system developed by Siemens. Siemens says that EWSD performs switching for over 160 million lines in more than 100 countries. EWSD is a modular system in which some switches in the system can be installed in a telephone company's Centrex facility and other switches can be located at the customer.

"Within a Siemens environment, it makes sense from the business point of view to migrate to Siemens products, and Surpass makes a good case for that," Schulz said.

In the Philippines, Schulz said that Siemens would be more aggressive in winning mindshare as a leader in the convergence race. Asked how Siemens intends to create better market awareness, he replied: "I believe that to build up this mindset, it would be more a matter of introducing the technology to the telcos. We will show them the possibilities of convergent services."

At the Surpass launch, Siemens officials said that the company was already conducting a seminar on the new solution for the Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co. Schulz said that Siemens would be talking to all local carriers.

Despite the legal obstacles to convergence in the country, Siemens was confident that the converged services market is on the verge of really taking off in the Philippines.

"There's a workaround to that, if we take a look at PLDT and the other carriers, they are offering converged services through subsidiaries and affiliated companies," pointed out Cesar Jacinto Castro II, Siemens Inc.'s assistant vice president for Marketing and Business Development for Information and Communications Networks.

"I don't know the particular laws here in the Philippines, but if we talk about the market, then the Philippines is actually more open to new technology than the German market," Schulz added. "Just look at your adoption of mobile technology-text is so big here."

Though admitting that competitors such as Nortel Networks, Lucent Technologies and Alcatel have been aggressive in creating the hype over convergence, Schulz pointed out that the strategy of these companies to gain data networking expertise has been acquisitions. In some of the biggest deals, Nortel acquired Bay Networks, Lucent bought Ascend Communications, while Alcatel snagged Xylan.

Alcatel also announced Feb. 23 that it is acquiring Siemens' strategic partner Newbridge Networks.

"We're very aggressive now," Schulz claimed, citing Siemen's Unisphere Solutions (www.unispheresolutions.com) initiative. "I believe that they're (Siemens' competitors) going into a similar adjustment period to respond to the needs of convergence. Maybe we have an advantage in the sense that we've been working in both data and voice networks since the beginning. The others just acquired companies and now they have to integrate those technologies."

It should be pointed out, though, that Siemens has also made its own data networking acquisitions, which were incorporated into Unisphere, the Siemens start-up focusing on converged services.

Siemens launched Unisphere on March 8 last year as part of its overall thrust into IP networks.

Previously, however, the defunct Siemens Nixdorf subsidiary had focused on information technology solutions. Following the global reorganization of Siemens, the Information and Communication Networks business unit now handles this market segment.

Though acknowledging the advantage of spinning-off start-ups to compete in Internet time, Dieter Hansen, Siemens Inc.'s senior vice president for Information and Communication Networks, said that Siemens still sees an advantage in maintaining its status as an end-to-end solutions provider.