No, I meant MY smartalecky comment, which was that for a while now, all telecom switches have been "softswitches". That is, the vast majority of switching functions happen is software. The difference is this:
1. In the case of ESS and other such switches, the software runs natively, usually in special purpose hardware
2. In the case of what has erroneously been called "softswitching" the switching software runs in emulation mode or virtual mode in hardware that was not specifically built for this purpose.
I'd definitely agree that PRI is a no-no in emulation, and your carrier should be the first to admit it. Outside of PRI people do use emulated DS circuits for 2 reasons, in my experience: cost and dynamic data/voice.
BTW, my FIRST smartalecky comment in this thread was to point out that comparing TDM with VOIP was wrong. That was misunderstood too. Eh, what can you do.
