VoIP Gateways

So here is a question for you: What do you get when you combine a leading U.S.-manufactured VoIP Gateway-Router with preinstalled Windows 7 and 3CX PBX (News - Alert) software? The answer is the new SmartNode IP-PBX (SNBX) from Gaithersburg, Md.-based Patton Electronics, which is now taking orders for the SNBX for September shipment. This is a fully-featured appliance aimed at small-to-medium business (SMBs) that packs a lot of feature functionality and can grow right along with you.

As we enter the all-IP age, reality is that the installed base of legacy PBX and key systems being used by SMBs has never been older, and hence, given the speed of change impacting their businesses, never has there been a greater sense of urgency to upgrade to Internet age capabilities while providing a graceful migration path to preserve existing capital investments.

The SNBX is designed to make the transition to VoIP as cost effective and as smooth a transition as possible for customers and the integrators and value-added resellers that serve them. It supports up to 500 SIP endpoints (phones) and up to 128 concurrent calls (64 with transcoding).“It’s about as close to zero downtime as you could realistically get,” said Tyler Delin, product marketing manager for the SmartNode brand. “The typical installation only takes about an hour for an eight to 32 call system.” 

A state-of-the-art combination in a small and affordable package

There is an old saying that “time is money.” The SNBX is engineered to save both. 

As Patton (News - Alert) points out, “Executive managers will surely appreciate the minimized disruption of operations, while VARS and integrators will save hours they would otherwise spend loading the OS and 3CX software—not to mention configuring and troubleshooting interconnected gateways or border-control elements.” And, it comes with built-in configurations for Patton’s complete line of SmartNode VoIP Gateways which further reduces the time and cost to deploy an all-IP business-class telephony system.

"SmartNode VoIP Gateway (News - Alert)-Routers richly enhance the solution by providing QoS routing for optimum voice quality," Tyler adds. "Patton gateways address just about any challenge organizations face while transitioning to IP telephony, such as integrating legacy telephony elements. And no one can beat our TCO proposition.”

Coupled with a SmartNode VoIP Gateway, the SNBX offers an enterprise-class IP-telephony solution that preserves capital investment. It integrates easily with:

• Existing fax machines
• Analog or ISDN handsets
• Legacy PBX systems

The Gateway can also provide fallback/breakout access to the traditional PSTN for survivability during Internet outages—plus local PSTN calling. And, the SmartNode gateways address such common challenges as ITSP interoperability when deploying SIP trunks, or setting up Microsoft (News - Alert) Lync or IBM Sametime, or similar Unified Communications platforms.

For the SMB, having all of those integrations, Windows 7 and the power of 3CX software working with SmartNode Solutions is literally having a window onto next generation communications while being able to move at your speed. The list of accessible functionality via SmartNode VoIP solutions illustrates Tyler’s points about ease-of-installation and versatility. They include:

• As noted, the seamless integration with existing analog POTS and digital ISDN infrastructures including major brands of softswitches and iPBXs.
• Patton’s SmartWare features touchless auto-provisioning and high reliability.
• SmartNode Unified Communication Agent (UCA) provides any-to-any multi-path switching (simultaneous SIP, H.323, ISDN and POTS calls with routing and conversion between TDM/PSTN and IP/Ethernet networks—plus T.38 and SuperG3 FAX), combined with dial-backup and IP-link redundancy for VoIP and data survivability.
• The UCA also provides VoIP-over-VPN security with encrypted voice via IPsec with AES/DES strong encryption and automated keying via Internet Key Exchange (IKE), plus SIP Registrar for presence/reach-ability. 

In short, even if you originally went from analog to digital by adopting ISDN the SmartNode preserves all the ISDN telephony features that ISDN users depend on and network operators require (AOC, CLIP, CLIR, UD64, overlap dialing and fax, as well as MSN and DID, and scales from 2 to 2048 voice calls.

Patton rightfully also likes to highlight the fact that all of its products come with free gold-standard customer support, including downloadable software updates. 

If you would like to learn more about the SNBX, Patton will be holding and education webinar on it Wednesday July 31, 2013, at 9 a.m. EDT.