The Dangerous Demo has been part of TADS since the beginning, starting with the first ever TADHack. We hacked together Metaswitch’s Project Clearwater IMS and Telestax’s RestComm application server, running on Ubuntu and provisioned in real-time using juju. You can see the hack here: IMS in Minutes, with close to 1500 views, such a niche topic is relatively popular.  Bringing together the sponsors’ and their partners’ technologies to show what is possible today for real, independent software systems working together in the public cloud. Its dangerous as its done on no budget, simply the willingness of the people involved in TADSummit to make something cool happen using their off the shelf platforms. This shows the power of taking a pragmatic, web / IT centric approach across telecom networks and telecom enabled services.

The TADSummit 2014 Dangerous Demo came from four pioneering telecom ecosystem companies: Truphone, Canonical, TeleStax and Metaswitch of a live, cloud-based telephone voting at the Telecom Application Developer Summit in Istanbul.  The dangerous demo took advantage of Ubuntu from Canonical, software from both Metaswitch and Telestax, and was connected using Truphone’s global mobile network. Built entirely on open source software, the demo was engineered in less than two weeks and conveyed how operators can reduce infrastructure costs and speed to market.  Ground-breaking aspects debuted within the demo included:

• Industry-wide traffic was routed for the first time from a telco into Project Clearwater, a full cloud-based IP Multimedia Subsystem from Metaswitch backed by a cluster of RestComm Telephony Application Servers. This features an API exposure layer and service-creation environment from TeleStax.
• Provisioned and operating within minutes were an orchestration of Ubuntu’s cloud OS and Juju Charms, thus rewriting the rules for network operators who typically spend weeks or much longer deploying new services.
• An IVR-polling application, which queried the Truphone HLR to play back information on the calling parties’ operators, identified which operator the demo phone was roaming on, updated a real-time dashboard with location and poll results, and sent back an SMS to the caller with a voucher at the end of the call session. This was made possible using Truphone’s core network, lookups and SMS (via API) and the provisioning of mobile numbers.

The TADSummit 2015 Dangerous Demo was much bigger, components shown at this demo included:

• Canonical – JuJu Charms and Virtual Network Function Manager
• Metaswitch – Project Clearwater and test tools
• DataArt – Conferencing and Media Manipulation
• OpenCell – User and Carrier Billing
• Telestax – Restcomm Application Platforms and SMSC/USSD/GMLC
• Apidaze – On Demand Communications
• Oracle – Converged Communications Application Server
• Dialogic – BorderNet, Diameter / MAP interworking function
• Truphone – OpenSource Communication Framework API and assorted mobile network components
• Zabbix – Real-Time Monioring and Scaling
• And a list minute Canonical presentation showing the Matrix federation server being added just before the event.

The TADSummit 2016 Dangerous Demo planning has begun. As ever the we’ll show how powerful the sponsors’ technologies are to realize a world-first demo running across multiple live networks, with nothing more than configuration in a hybrid cloud environment. Some of the ideas include:

• Intercepting calls and messages in the network using bots for a number of features such as a timezone aware intelligent agent, including authentication of the callee for calendar sharing, using an agent to automatically reconnect the caller into a conference for dropped calls, and lots more network agent services.
• Mobile Edge Computing: Applications on the edge of small cell infrastructure using multi-operator neutral host cells (i.e. privately owned). For example applications could include, abbreviated dialing, recognizing individuals and reacting to their presence.  We’ll have a local MME / EPC performing micro location tracking and recognizing users locally.
• Deploying on demand applications at the edge of the network such as dynamic test tools, marketplace software, IoT hubs and application, etc.
• Distributed web based edge deployed applications such as on demand / dynamic shared licensed content and billing, streaming of hi-def to end users across multiple camera views.
• TADHack Global hacks will also be running across the live infrastructure.

The list goes on of ideas, hopefully some of which will be realized by November 🙂 The demos are dangerous. We’ll show how a software centric approach to telecoms revolutionizes the infrastructure, the services, and operations. We live in exciting times!