Open IN Service Provider Access

Open IN service provider access means that a public telecommunication network operator lets other companies have access to special parts of the public network in order to provide added value services such as for example freephone or premium rate services to subscribers of the public network operator. European regulators have stated that this type of access is needed in order to achieve free competition in the telecommunications sector. It is however not evident how this type of interface should be implemented, and this paper discusses possible solutions. We conclude that an interface based on the INAP protocol on top of the TCP/IP protocol stack combined with an interworking function is the best solution. 1 Introduction and background It is generally accepted today that the business of providing plain old telephony is different from the business of providing value added services to telephony. However, in practice this is not as evident as it may sound. The development of telecommunica..