 made by the other companies. The benefits of the communications server architecture in- clude the following: 1. It is customized to your individual needs. You pay for what you need, and nothing more (unlike traditional PBXs, where you may never use many of the system features). 2. It can be truly different from what everyone else has and therefore provides a real competitive edge for your customers. You can get the equipment and hardware you prefer since hardware, software and telephones will all work on most platforms. (Note: This may be coming, but most commu- nications servers are still proprietary requiring the use of the manufacturer's telephones.) Even the desktop com- puter interfaces can be tailored to provide that with which the individual is most comfortable. 4. New features can be added quickly. The Telecom Handbook 157 CONVERGENCE OF VOICE & DATA 5. The life cycle of switches will decline, approaching that of PC's and local area networks. As the communications server industry develops and softswitch networks are deployed, time will tell how much of the above actually happens and how quickly. History tells us that technology never develops exactly as the industry gurus predict. The Concept Of Specialized Networks Telecommunications network transport has become a com- modity with cost per minute for a long distance call costing approaching 2 cents. It is increasingly difficult to distinguish one access network from another. In a softswitch network, the gateway, the media gateway controller and the IP telephones are all considered to be part of the access network. The differ- entiation will be with the applications network (which uses an access network for transport) as new applications are de- veloped for customers. With the deployment of fiber optic cable throughout the car- rier networks in anticipation of increased demand, theoretically there is no capacity limit. Additional transmission capability may be added to the network, as long as the cost of adding the elec- tronics at either end to activate