Positron Telecommunication Systems Inc., which is showcasing its VoIP-enabled PBX (News - Alert) systems this week at Astricon 2009, in Glendale Ariz., has announced that its V-Series PBX PCI adapters are fully interoperable with Vyatta’s (News - Alert) open networking and security software, providing an easy to use, integrated voice and data networking solution.

“Integrating with Vyatta was a natural step for Positron,” said Richard McGravie, president of Positron Telecom, in a release. “Both companies’ software foundation is on open source applications and the Vyatta software platform offers complementary routing and security solutions for the Positron PBX PCI systems to integrate. Now enterprises have a unique value proposition for their customers offering enterprises a secure and scalable voice platform.”

“The Positron PBX solution is quite innovative,” added Dave Roberts, vice president of strategy and marketing at Vyatta. “The design allows resellers and partners to quickly and easily add PBX functionality to a Vyatta router and security appliance, providing a single hardware system that performs voice and data processing functions. This is quite valuable as our customers seek to decrease the space and power of their communications deployments.”

Positron Telecom, a Canadian company founded in 2008 as a spin-off of Positron Holding Inc., makes telephony boards that combine an Asterisk (News - Alert)-based PBX, media gateway, echo cancellation and Ethernet interface on an embedded PCI board. Its products, which were made commercially available in the second quarter of this year, are distributed worldwide and are reportedly seeing strong adoption in Europe and the United States.

Geared for SMBs (2 to 100 lines), the company’s VoIP solutions represent a change in approach compared to the traditional telecommunications card market. By integrating Linux, Asterisk, echo canceller, Ethernet (for PCI and LAN), telephone ports (FXS) and gateway (FXO) on a single card, Positron has created the first standalone solution that can be installed on any PC. By interfacing Ethernet with the PCI bus, its solutions are operating system independent, with no special drivers required. In addition, all processing happens on the card, requiring no CPU power. What’s more, because all boards in the box are Ethernet based, this allows boards with different telephony interfaces to co-exist within the same host PC.

Positron Telecom, which recently launched the PBX PCI Adapter channel on TMCnet, claims that not only are these cards easier to install and configure (you don’t have to be a certified technician, they are very end-user-friendly), they also help customers lower their cost per port while achieving better reliability and security, improved quality of service, and the ability to gain features and capabilities that other vendors have not yet been able to deliver on a single PCI card.

Vyatta offers commercially supported, open-source networking solutions that provide an alternative to over-priced, inflexible products from proprietary vendors. Its Linux-based router, firewall and VPN software gives customers a level of control that proprietary solutions can’t match.