 Now that we have become comfortable with the migration and evolution issues for existing networks and terminal equipment to Become compatible and interoperable with NGN there are some network elements and functional entities Which are important to be understood because some very interesting functionality can be realized through these Of course, since these are going to be software based so intelligence or the level of functional Features is going to be immense So we are going to look at what our intelligent networks and what is the role of Soft switches with regards to providing some value-added features We'd look at first of all the intelligent networks So intelligent networks is a proper terminology It's a standard network architecture that was put forth by ITU Telecommunication to door 1200 specification series it targets Both fixed and mobile networks the purpose is to allow the Telecommunication operators and service providers both to offer value-added services in addition to the More typical telecom services Intelligent networks are meant to provide intelligent services by dedicated network nodes these dedicated network nodes do not Work at the core of the network rather These nodes provide service layer this service layer essentially implies that The services are end-to-end so the intelligence of the network as in offering multiple services resides at the edge of the network not in the core because The providing intelligence to the core is not what iron is about so it means the intelligent network is going to be more about services and This is what exactly it is so we have Call related functionalities for instance call screening Local number portability if you change your location or your suburb or even your city for that matter the zero eight hundred numbers the toll-free numbers and the prepaid calls because usually it is assumed that the Postpaid services were typical for telecommunication, but you can think about prepaid calling then video calling group calling and developing your own PBX virtually that is to create a distinct group of users That are physically co-located or even Dispressed spread over large area then having one universal telephone number which is applicable within the engine or across multiple engines then mass calling services that is capability to have Multiple calls initiated simultaneously to multiple parties independently not like multi-casting then Without having to use Country code or foreign dialing code as plus or double zero So dialing from abroad to the homeland or calling from the homeland to abroad without having to use the prefix then reverse charging that is the Gold party base then the discount coupons Etc etc Now the list can go on and on but how is it realized? It is realized through software based Private branch exchange well, there's a subtle Relationship or I would say Apple and orange comparison between a private branch exchange and a soft switch so we can say Soft switch can be configured to behave like private branch exchange But a private branch exchange cannot be Assumed to be a full-stack soft switch so all the functionalities that you've seen earlier are part of the Software implementation Voice mail call handling whatever we've seen earlier Can be implemented in software too well-known Platforms such as asterisk and Free PBX are known to be implementing a lot of such functionality In all these cases in fact almost always The PBX systems can be implemented on a PC server hardware as simple as Installing another software That uses a complete Stack so asterisk and free PBX use the complete stack the call server that we have seen in the context of Emulation is a very interesting and useful component that provides almost all a man imaginable Traditional services in PSTN and ISDN That could be implemented That were otherwise implemented in our hardware so the functional entities in a call center are going to be a lot of In a call server are going to be a lot of Specific sub modules for instance, we have the access call server Now this part of the call server implements the management of the access gateway itself For instance allowing or admitting a subscriber after registration then a breakout call server now this module allows the control of The Trunking media gateways Which connect with PSTNs? So it means breakout or interfacing with the existing PSTN Switching systems is going to be the responsibility of this server Then the next important component of the call server is the IMS call server Now the IMS call server has the responsibility to manage the Border gateways or the Switches or the gateways which connect to other NGNs and IP based networks So it means that there is going to be a kind of inter NGN communication and call handling through IMS call server the gateway call server Provides a compatibility between different emulation services. For example, emulation Is implemented through a certain component in one part of NGN Within the same NGN. There's another emulation Implementation using another component these can be made interoperable by using the gateway calls server Then we have the routing call server that allows the discovery of multiple call servers Which request could be initiated by Either of the call servers