One of the biggest obstacles businesses face in deploying VoIP across their networks is the fact that, very often, the LAN isn’t capable of supporting it.

Company size and a lack of networking topology standards combined with peaks and valleys in bandwidth usage means most company LANs simply can’t support an IP-based voice service – or at least they can’t support one that is of the same quality and reliability as a traditional voice service.

What’s more, companies that decide to converge their voice and data networks often face a long and expensive IT project that not only requires significant up-front investment in equipment and architecture but which also ties up in-house resources and potentially causes service disruptions.  Voice quality, return on investment and network security are also major concerns for companies looking to overlay voice on an existing LAN.

To help companies bypass these challenges, telephony solutions provider Phybridge (News - Alert) has come up with a unique appliance and a “new” network architecture that enables companies to securely and reliably deliver VoIP and Power over Ethernet over standard CAT3 telephone cabling.

Dubbed the “VoIP Enabler,” Phybridge’s UniPhyer appliance creates a “parallel network,” using existing voice infrastructure, dedicated for handling voice traffic. By keeping voice traffic separate from the data layer of the network, companies can deploy reliable, high quality VoIP across their locations while at the same time preserving bandwidth for other mission-critical operations.

Phybridge claims UniPhyer delivers a complete independent voice network with PoE for less than the cost of running cable. Through this configuration companies can gain a single expanded IP network with two drops to every desk and a dedicated point-to-point path for voice with PoE and QoS – all while using their existing PBX (News - Alert). The company claims this point-to-point topology provides the same signal quality and reliability of a legacy voice network.

What is surprising is how everyone benefits from this solution: Businesses benefit because they gain a VoIP communications network at a fraction of the cost of deploying a new one, plus they can reap the savings rewards of VoIP and save on long term communications costs; and traditional service providers benefit because it solves the problem of how to reliably deliver quality voice services across LANs of all types and sizes without having to deal with complex integration or having to constantly fine tune the balance between data and voice.

More remarkable still is the fact that no other telephony solutions provider thought of this simple, elegant architecture sooner!

Phybridge UniPhyer is a recipient of Unified Communications magazine’s 2008 Product of the Year Award and also won Best in Show at TMC’s (News - Alert) INTERNET TELEPHONY Conference & EXPO East 2009.

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