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VoIP Vendors to 'Converge' on Show

Posted on: Saturday, 19 February 2005, 03:00 CST

There will be no shortage of VoIP PBXs, phones and gateways on display at this week's VoiceCon conference, but such infrastructure components could get overshadowed by a slew of announcements about new management tools for converged networks.

The conference, which takes place in Orlando, will showcase VoIP plans by companies such as Bank of America, Delta Air Lines and Lehman Brothers. Cisco and Nortel executives will face off in a debate, and 103 exhibitors will pitch their wares before a crowd that show organizers estimate will hit 4,500, up 25% from last year.

According to a Computing Technology Industry Association survey of 500 businesses, more than half of those planning phone system upgrades this year are considering converged systems, either hybrid or pure-IP platforms. Either way experts advise potential VoIP customers to invest in tools they can use to ready their data networks to transport voice and later troubleshoot the converged networks when problems arise.

"It is mandatory to perform an assessment," says Jeffrey Snyder, an analyst at Gartner. "The cost overrun and performance horror stories you hear are due to a lack of network readiness assessments."

Observers say network assessment and ongoing management of converged networks is more challenging than with voice networks based on PBXs featuring built-in management tools, as well as proprietary wiring and switching infrastructures optimized to handle voice. With IP telephony, companies need to make sure their voice traffic isn't infringing upon other IP applications.

Plenty to choose from

Also at the show:

* Empirix's Hammer VoIP Test Solution will be among the new tools on tap for testing convergence readiness.The product is in use at UpSource, a provider of oiitsourced customer service call center services in Denver.

"I like to use the product to validate that I am truly ready to add more voice endpoints, and that my network will be able to support them," says Mark Burns, UpSource's CTO. "We wouldn't want to jeopardize current call quality to our customers by trying to add more services without having the capabilities in place."

The Empirix product, which starts at $40,000, has three parts: Hammer FX-IP which generates test IP calls and evaluates voice quality; Hammer CallMaster, a scripting and reporting tool that helps IT managers create test call flows; and Hammer Call Analyzer, a VoIP signal troubleshooting and debugging application.

VoiceCon sampler

* Apparent Networks also will highlight a new voice network assessment tool set, an add-on to the company's AppareNet infrastructure analysis tool. AppareNet Voice includes algorithms to test application traffic for jitter, packet loss and network latency. The product is designed to help companies more quickly determine what needs to be fixed, added or changed to maintain pre- defined voice QoS levels.

"Voice is a fairly robust application, but if there are any gotchas out there, I want to know sooner rather than later," says Martin Webb, manager of data network operations for the Province of British Columbia in Victoria. He plans to use Apparent's new product to help verify the network upgrades he's done in preparation for rolling out 450 VoIP sites this April.

"We've had to replace hardware, switches and routers, and a lot of components in between, and I am looking to get analysis specific to voice telling me if my configuration changes will support the QoS I need to deliver''he says.

* For users of Avaya IP telephony gear who want to outsource management and monitoring tasks, Avaya Global Services is announcing its Remote Managed Services for IP Telephony Via this monthly service, Avaya technicians will remotely monitor and manage networks based on a company's gear. Using the Avaya Secure Intelligent Gateway (also debuting at VoiceCon), a vendor can tunnel into a customer network through a VPN and tap into a customer's infrastructure to monitor VoIP traffic latency jitter and bandwidth utilization. The product can monitor application availability, as well as physical monitoring of IP PBXs, application servers and gateways. Avaya says pricing is determined on a per-customer basis.

* AnchorPoint and Qovia are offering new VoIP-prep wares at VoiceCon. AnchorPoint makes software to help telecom departments manage budgets and analyze spending on services and equipment.The vendors new Advanced Analytics products could help telecom managers monitor and track VoIP network usage, and help plan requirements for VoIP rollouts. Qovia, which makes VoIP traffic monitoring and management appliances, is announcing a partnership program. This will allow IP PBX vendors to include Qovia technology inside their systems; 3Com, Cisco and NEC are among IP PBX vendors whose products work with Qovia appliances.

Hardware on tap

Plenty of nuts-and-bolts VoIP hardware will be launched at the show.

NEC is releasing a rack-mountable IP PBX aimed at single offices with 50 to 300 users, or branch locations tied to a larger corporate network. The Univerge SV7000 MPS (Multi-purpose Server) is a modular chassis that can accept cards for IP call setup and signal processing, as well as blades that can act as application servers, connectivity gateways for public switched telephone network (PSTN), IP networks and wireless LAN (WLAN) controllers. (However, NEC's future WLAN strategy is in question because the vendor resells gear from Airespace, now owned by rival Cisco.)

The MPS can act as a standalone IP PBX for a small office, or link to a centralized NEC Univerge SV7000 IP PBX platform or a legacy NEAX PBX in a main corporate office. When acting as a remote site device, the MPS integrates with a corporate dialing plan and can use applications hosted on centralized servers. A local Linuxbased IP PBX processor blade on the MPS can provide local dial tone and call control if the branch device is cut off from a mainoffice voice system, NEC says.

The MPS is scheduled to be released in the second quarter starting at around $340 per seat, not including phones.

Inter-Tel is launching its Model 5000 TDM/IP hybrid PBX, which has been ported to a real-time Linux operating system running on a rack-mountable server, with support for up to 500 endpoints. It costs $400 to $600 per user.

The device includes Inter-Tel's complete feature set and call control software, and supports Inter-Tel IP phones, as well as standard Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) phones.The device also can support legacy Inter-Tel digital handsets with an expansion card. Analog and digital interface cards also are available for the IP PBX, which allows it to work with legacy fax and PSTN links.

The Inter-Tel 5000 also supports the vendor's line of unified messaging and presence management applications, which run on separate Intel-standard servers.

Also at the show, ShoreTel is expected to release Version 2 of the operating system for its distributed ShoreGear IP PBX platform. ShoreGear devices provide call control and telephony features to IP or digital handsets.

The boxes can be distributed over a WAN and managed as a single system, with support for up to 10,000 users.

The ShoreTel 5 Version 2 operating system now can work with legacy voice mail servers, such as Avaya Octel or Nortel Meridian Mail. ShoreTel's own voice mail server now can be used with legacy Avaya and Nortel PBX platforms. The new release also adds features that let users send voice pages to specific groups, or company- wide, and include all WAN-connected remote and branch offices in a page message.

ShoreTel is also introducing what it calls "whisper paging," which lets an employee break into a conversation another employee is having with a third-party caller, without the third party hearing the voice signal.

"These could be considered luxury features," says Gartner's Snyder, regarding the new ShoreTel features."But it's a sign of how advanced the product is."

ShoreTel 5 Version 2 is a free upgrade.

Convergence

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Copyright Network World Inc. Feb 7, 2005

Source: Network World

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