April 1998

Vienna Systems Corporation
55 Legget Drive, Suite 400
Kanata, Ontario K2K 2X3
Ph: 613-591-3219; Fx: 613-591-9973
E-mail: [email protected]
Web site: www.viennasys.com

Price: Server, $5,000 per network. 24-port

Internet telephony, with its promise of free (or very cheap) long-distance service, emboldens many people to predict the demise of the telephone company or — at the least — the rise of a new kind of phone company. The idea seems to be that free or cheap phone service will inspire the masses to abandon the phone company, upsetting the status quo.

New service providers are already getting started, and many businesses look forward to running their voice traffic over their own data networks. And companies that specialize in Internet telephony, such as Vienna Systems, are working hard to help them succeed. Vienna designs and manufactures server- based hardware and software products that distribute voice, data, and video calls across IP networks, including private intranets, as well as the public Internet. Vienna’s flagship product, Vienna.way, is a client/server application designed to accommodate several types of calls — calls between clients over an IP network, calls to people on the PSTN via a gateway, and calls to an IP network via a gateway.

Vienna.way is actually a family of products, including the Vienna.way Call Processing Server, the Vienna.way Gateway, and the Vienna.way Desktop Applications. In our review, we concentrated on the Gateway and Desktop Applications, particularly my.way, an application designed to extend multi-line phone and PBX functionality to the end user. We did not install our own Call Processing Server. Instead, we used an ordinary phone to call into a Gateway at a Vienna site, which was connected to a Call Processing Server.

INSTALLATION
Installing the gateway is a day’s project for a knowledgeable ISP, and Vienna offers a class for potential system administrators to prepare themselves. Luckily, ours was a turnkey system, and all we had to do was plug it in, switch it on, and do some configuring. Our version (1.0) uses a Solaris Unix interface, but an interim version has a simplified HTML interface. The next major release, 2.0, should come out sometime this month.

The materials we received from Vienna included two serial phones, two CD-ROMs, several manuals and cables, and the rather large computer. The first thing we did was remove the case, only to become slightly bewildered: beneath the case, instead of finding the usual circuit boards and related toys, we found — a metal panel? It’s a plus for the sturdiness factor but a thumbs-down for access. The panel slid off neatly by loosening a few screws; behind this sat our gateway’s guts. The first step involved cables. The gateway uses ISDN lines to connect itself to the publicly switched telephone network. We didn’t have any of these lines available, so we just connected the gateway to one of our network hubs. We also connected the enclosed serial phones to two client computers, one running Windows NT 4.0 Server, the other running Windows 95. The serial phones get their power from the keyboards; special adapters are included to accomplish this.

Next comes setting up the server software — it’s called "VSserver" — and don’t forget that Unix is case-sensitive. Our copy was pre-installed, but it all looks simple enough in the manual, involving simple decompressing and such. Then there’s the actual gateway program — "VSpstn" — which, according to the manual, is an equally simple process. Once that’s done, you install "VCtool" and edit the Windows "hosts" file using notepad, DOS edit, or whatever you like. This edit includes adding an IP address and a server name to the file. There’s also some minor file editing that may need to be done using the infamous Unix "vi" editor.

Finally it’s off to the client PCs, where you do additional VCtool configuration involving the gateway, BRI boards, and extension groups. Then comes the most down-to-earth part: installing the "my.way" client software, the actual interface for those long-distance calls. Minimal requirements are a Pentium 75 or faster, Windows 95, and a TCP/IP network connection. Installing this software presented a strange situation for us: for some reason, our copy worked on an NT 4.0 machine, but got only 10 percent complete on a Windows 95 machine before crashing. We never did figure out why this happened — we think the problem was unique to our hardware or our actual copy of the CD — but on the second try, using a different Windows 95 computer, the installation was successful. By the way — there’s also a "phone.way" adapter that lets you connect a standard DTMF telephone instead of the serial phone, which lacks a ringer adjustment and other basic features. The nice thing is that the phone can still be used as such even when the computer is off. With a two-line phone, you could use one line for standard calls and devote the other to Internet gateway calls.

DOCUMENTATION
At first glance, the documentation seemed comprehensive and detailed, but the first glance didn’t show that the manuals weren’t fully up-to-date. There are actually four manuals: one for the services control node, one for the toll bypass application, one that’s a general information guide, and one for installation and maintenance. We knew they were outdated after just a few pages because they consistently refer to floppy disks, and our package came with two CD-ROMs. Plus, on page 55 of the installation manual, it says that "the current version … runs only under Windows 95," and ours worked fine under NT 4.0. Obviously, these manuals, while satisfactorily comprehensive, need to be updated for version 2.0 (which was in beta testing while we reviewed the current major release). And as stated above, our installation would’ve been much more tedious if not for the patient, knowledgeable, and supportive help desk personnel.

We give high marks to the general information manual, which has sections devoted to explaining Internet telephony concepts and standards. There’s also a superb 78-term glossary at the end of this manual that explains both common and atypical telephony terms.

An interesting part of the documentation is the diagram showing how to connect the serial phones. One arm of a Y-cable ends in a splitter, which bisects the client computer’s keyboard cable and CPU case; the other arm goes to the client computer’s available 9-pin serial port. Each phone comes with a P/S 2 version and a standard keyboard version, which shows that Vienna gave the matter some thought — but then, if two keyboard connectors are included, an optional 25-pin adapter should also be thrown in.

• Network Interfaces provide physical connections to the network through the BRI, T1/E&M, T1/PRI, and E1/PRI.
• Signaling generates supervisory and control signals for calls into the PSTN or across an IP network, as well as set up of signaling across the IP network.
• Tone detection and generation DSPs detect tones received from and generate tones for dialing on the PSTN.
• Conference bridging DSP on the Gateway allows multiple parties to participate in voice and data conferences. It automatically detects the loudest speakers, mixes audio streams, and sends this out to the network to reduce background noise.
• Echo Cancellation — ITU G.165 compliant.
• Voice compression is performed by Lucent 7.3 codecs configured on the DSP cards by the administrator.

OPERATIONAL TESTING
We made calls from one office to our nearby laboratory, using inhouse extensions that would’ve been free if only we had another gateway and 3,000 miles between us. Then we took some time to make some real Internet calls. We dialed a Vienna server in California, entered an account number and a phone number, and enjoyed the glory of it while our call routed itself over the Internet to Virginia, at which point another gateway sent the call to the desired phone number in Philadelphia. But the audio quality was disappointing. Before we explained the Internet telephony concept to our callee, she thought we were simply using a bad telephone — a reminder of how a customer might respond if this technology were deployed in the corporate enterprise. In an age of near-perfect call reliability, what would a customer think of a company that cuts costs by using inferior- quality telephones? All things considered, the gateway is simple to use and we liked the client software. The advantages are obvious, but so is the poor call quality.

ROOM FOR IMPROVEMENT
The good news is that for version 2.0, the HTML installation replaces the Unix platform. Version 2.0 will also offer T1 connections, network-wide silence suppression, and video conferencing. We hope the documentation is revamped, especially in the installation and maintenance area: there’s very little in here related to actual maintenance, no discussion of the NT 4.0 world, and obviously NT 5.0 will need addressing. We’d also like to see more screen shots.

CONCLUSION
Internet gateways aren’t yet what they’re hyped to become. You sacrifice quality for savings, but that might not even be the biggest concern for companies who would like to rely on Internet calls someday. The big concern will be reliability — if your network goes down, will your phone system go down, too. Despite the enclosed adapters for "real" telephones, the answer so far seems to be yes. Vienna’s gateway is a good gateway, but except for making free and reduced-cost telephony that much more accessible, it doesn’t do much to help the cause. A medium-sized company may not be willing to experiment with this kind of product, but we’re sure ISPs will find customers who love what Vienna.way can do.