VoIP Gateways

It is one of the inevitable trends of the Internet Age that accelerate the desirability of enterprises of all sizes to move off of legacy TDM-based voice communications to next generation VoIP platforms are significant. Indeed, it is why the announcement that London, UK-based 3CX, developer of a popular Windows VoIP PBX 3CX Phone (News - Alert) System, and Patton Electronics, an internationally respected VoIP Gateway manufacturer, through their strategic partnership are now guaranteeing full 3CX Phone System and Patton’s (News - Alert) SmartNode Gateways interoperability is noteworthy.  

Ease-of-use, ease-of-installation and comprehensive support are the keys

The two companies are certifying that their solutions are not just interoperable, but are automatically configurable and customers and partners will be provided with full support from both companies.

With virtually any PBX (News - Alert) still requiring a gateway in order to enable all of the benefits of VoIP and unified communications (UC) capabilities, ease of use, installation and support is non-trivial.  As Nick Galea, 3CX, CEO commented, “This strategic collaboration between 3CX’s best-of-breed Phone System and Patton Gateways allows us to offer our customers a cutting-edge Unified Communications (News - Alert) solution with quality hardware. Patton Gateways are renowned for their quality and top notch technical support. This strategic partnership solidifies our ongoing partnership and provides iron cast guarantee to partners and customers that 3CX Phone System will be 100 percent interoperable and fully supported by both companies, providing unparalleled peace of mind.”

Bobby Patton, CEO at Patton Electronics, is also excited about the extension of the strategic partnership. He noted that, “3CX has been one of our most successful partnerships,” says “Together we have provided our partners and customer’s full peace of mind as the entire line of Patton SmartNode Gateways are fully tested and validated by 3CX before their release. On top of guaranteeing seamless interoperability, installation could not be easier since configurations for each SmartNode model are built into 3CX Phone System and step-by-step configuration guides are posted on 3CX’s website.”

Foundational to the guarantee of full interoperability between 3CX Phone System and SmartNode Gateways is the extensive testing of each firmware against the 3CX Phone System before its release to partners and customers. Plus, in regards to the aforementioned “peace of mind,”3CX and Patton have guaranteed response times to fix any interoperability issues should in an unlikely scenario they arise.

VoIP Gateways still a requirement

As mentioned above, reality is that despite VoIP’s popularity, many enterprises for a variety of reason insist on maintaining the ability to use their existing telephone lines because of their reliability. In addition, there is a segment of the market which takes a phased approach to migrating to VoIP and thus needs to integrate existing legacy telephony and fax devices with their VoIP system. In short, not only are VoIP Gateways required to support these types of environments, in looking at the global market the requirements are likely to be around for longer than many are predicting.  In addition, Patton rightfully likes to tout the fact that the Patton Gateways are superior to add-in cards. They are:

More reliable

Easier to maintain

Allow 3CX Phone System to be virtualized with Hyper-V or VMware

In fact, the SmartNode product line is feature rich.  The gateways eliminate interoperability obstacles for companies wishing to keep their legacy equipment (PBXs, phones, fax equipment, POTS lines, etc.) when implementing a VoIP.  They also scaling from 1 to 120 VoIP or fax calls, and provide a range of analog FXS/FXO and/or ISDN BRI/PRI and can come with built-in IP access routing, WAN transmission, and transcoding functionality

As Patton likes to say about it U.S.-manufactured products, they are known for quality and for providing the consistency that a PBX requires. The company also is unique in the way it approaches support which is free along with free software upgrades.   

The expansion of the partnership to include the guarantee of interoperability and support provides customers the options they seek as they move to VoIP at their own speed according to their unique needs, and the assurance they seek that things will work as required and fixed in a timely and very cost-effective manner should anything go wrong.  In short, while many fear change, the move to VoIP can and should be a positive milestone as companies grow and evolve to meet the needs of a rapidly changing real-time and multiple media centric world.