BT to enable new network services

BT could soon be opening its network to allow other companies to run advanced voice and data services over its telephone lines.

The telco giant demonstrated services using a new application programming interface (API) called Parlay last week.

Parlay aims to speed up and cut the cost of network services. According to BT, Parlay will provide a common interface for any telecoms network, giving developers easier access to network resources without compromising security.

At present, adding new services to a network involves substantial effort because each element of a service has to work with all the existing parts of the network, such as billing systems.

This makes the development of new services prohibitively expensive.

Nortel Networks, which forms part of the consortium that developed Parlay, says the new interface will encourage the development of applications which would otherwise be so time-consuming or complex that the project would not be worth undertaking.

Nortel marketing director Loretta Michaels said that applications which might appeal to only one market - an automated system for contacting patients who had not renewed prescriptions by telephone, for example - could be developed more easily and cheaply using Parlay, and then run over a telco's network.

BT says that Parlay will allow applications that are based outside of a network to access network devices.

This will allow third parties to develop services such as integrated voice and data applications which would run without the involvement of the telco.

BT said its long-term aim was to integrate Parlay with its infrastructure, but declined to give a timescale.