December 2000

BY CAROL DRZEWIANOWSKI

According to The Phillips Group, during this period, 3Com shipped a total of 2,130 systems and 44,300 lines, attaining 52.1 percent market share of IP-PBX system shipments. 3Com shipped 1,380 new systems and 25,500 new lines in the second quarter alone. For the broader IP-PBX and IP-enabled PBX categories, these figures represent 38.1 percent of total IP telephony lines shipped.

"We are witnessing an inflection point in the market where customers and value-added resellers are reevaluating their premise-based communications options. Customers are moving away from legacy PBX systems and investing in open, IP-based solutions. In the first half of 2000, over 20 percent of all PBX/IP-PBX systems shipped in North America were IP-based," said Ed Wadbrook, Director of Voice Solutions, 3Com.

Another company that is making its presence known in this space is Cisco, who recently announced enhancements to its CiscoWorks2000 Family, including voice and VPN management functionality for comprehensive management of the evolving network. The Resource Manager Essentials application, included in both the RWAN and LAN management solutions, supports a variety of Cisco voice and VPN platforms and technologies. Users can deploy VPNs and IP-enabled voice technologies with the assurance that the appropriate management support is in place.

For voice management in the campus LAN environment, the LAN management solution now provides advanced troubleshooting and monitoring capabilities. Users can now trace phone call paths across the network, identify performance issues that may affect voice quality, associate IP phone numbers and users with IP addresses, and switch ports to which the phones are attached. Additionally, all voice-enabled platforms can be identified and displayed on network maps for comprehensive views.

Cahners In-Stat predicts that LAN telephony will become "the network of the future" and that sales of LAN telephony equipment will outstrip sales of traditional PBX equipment by the year 2003. And as we approach 2001, it certainly seems that businesses are "ringing out the old" PBX systems and "ringing in the new" IP-PBXs. Just glance over some of the recent announcements in this space and you'll see what I mean.

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Corporate Solutions News Trillium's H.323 Solution Chosen By ShelCad Telia and Symbol Release Public Access WLAN Services Intel Unveils Communications Platform Performance Technologies Introduces IPNexus Family ComGates Announces CMG/CSS 2000 Softswitch Lucent, CopperCom To Deliver In-Building Broadband Solution Ericsson Unveils Secure WLAN Products Trillium's H.323 Solution Chosen By ShelCad Trillium Digital Systems has reached an agreement to provide its high-performance H.323 IP telephony software solution to ShelCad Communications, facilitating true network convergence through the low-cost and seamless conversion of regular phones into Internet phones. Powered with Trillium's H.323 protocol stack, ShelCad is developing an IP adapter device called "Appearion" that will allow regular phones to migrate and provide Internet telephony services without making high-cost infrastructure investments. Telia and Symbol Release Public Access WLAN Services Symbol Technologies, Telia Mobile, and Service Factory have announced a program to service the rapidly growing global market for public access, broadband wireless local area networks. The program will combine Telia Mobile's HomeRun license product, Symbol Technologies' Spectrum24 High Rate wireless LAN infrastructure and associated services, and the radio LAN Access Server technology from Service Factory to deliver a complete, end-to-end solution. Symbol Technologies, Telia Mobile, and Service Factory enable franchisees to market, deploy, and manage a complete broadband wireless data network, specifically targeting mainstream corporate users for tomorrow's next-generation data services today. "Through our relationships with business partners such as Telia Mobile and Service Factory, Symbol continues to extend the wireless market to encompass new and innovative applications. The HomeRun service clearly delivers substantial added value for global mobile professionals," said John Vaccaro, vice president of Symbol's Mobile and Wireless Systems, EMEA Division. Intel Unveils Communications Platform Intel's Dialogic subsidiary has demonstrated the Intel Communications Platform, a standards-based application-ready platform and set of open hardware and software building blocks designed to respond to the rapidly changing communications needs of e-businesses. The combination of the Intel Communications Platform and applications from CT Media Value Network third parties enables a solution which can serve as a general-purpose business communications system, e-business customer contact center, IP gateway, and communications applications server. The platform's unique modular building block approach enhances the communications of an e-business through integration of several key technologies (IP telephony, speech recognition, voice and fax media processing, and multi-node scalability) on a single platform. Performance Technologies Introduces IPNexus Family Performance Technologies introduced two new carrier-grade network access products for next-generation telecom and IP telephony applications. The CPC388 octal T1/E1/J1 and CPC395 dual T3/DS3 adapters join the recently announced CPC4400 embedded Ethernet switch in Performance Technologies' IPNexus family of network access products. IPNexus products support cPSB, PTI's embedded packet-switching backplane which overlays an embedded Ethernet switching network on the CompactPCI backplane. cPSB dramatically improves the performance, scalability, and reliability of CompactPCI while preserving its H.110 bus, mechanical, power, and hot-swap attributes. ComGates Announces CMG/CSS 2000 Softswitch ComGates recently announced the new CMG/CSS 2000 Softswitch, which provides on-the-fly multi-protocol capability by employing a unique, proprietary process that can, in real time, automatically switch traffic between all existing and emerging standards. The CMG/CSS 2000 Softswitch can also simultaneously run multiple transmission protocols on the same operating platform, eliminating the need for users to commit to one protocol over another and enabling the integration of new technologies as quickly as they are developed. Lucent, CopperCom To Deliver In-Building Broadband Solution Lucent Technologies and CopperCom are working together to deliver an in-building voice-and-data-over-wireless broadband solution to service providers targeting business subscribers. Winstar Communications is among the first companies to commercially deploy the solution using an innovative architecture, which combines the bandwidth benefits of in-building digital subscriber line (DSL) technology with the economy of an integrated fiber and fixed wireless network. The complete in-building solution includes Lucent's Cellpipe integrated access devices (IADs) and family of Stinger DSL access concentrators, as well as the CopperCom gateways. Building access will be secured via ATM over fixed wireless. Packetized voice and data will be sent to one of 30 CopperCom gateways being deployed in Winstar's switching centers. The CopperCom gateways will convert the packetized voice back into regular analog voice, sending it to a Lucent 5ESS Switch. "The Lucent/CopperCom solution will enable Winstar to deliver a number of innovative broadband services in-building within a single infrastructure," said Dave Ackerman, Winstar Group Executive for Network and Systems Services. "The CopperCom gateway is a robust product that allows the Lucent 5ESS features to be available to a broader number of buildings and customers. This allows Winstar to dramatically simplify the provisioning and management processes inherent in providing broadband services, while significantly lowering capital expenditures associated with adding new buildings." Ericsson Unveils Secure WLAN Products Ericsson Enterprise announced its line of wireless LAN (WLAN) products, designed to streamline communications for small and medium businesses. Ericsson's WLAN reduces the need for wired connections and makes innovative application uses possible by adding flexibility to today's wired networks. Its mobility, user authentication, and data encryption for enterprises and service providers allows Ericsson WLAN users to access information and network resources as they attend meetings, collaborate with other users, or move to other campus locations. Ericsson's WLAN is an IEEE 802.11b-compliant, Direct Sequence (DSSS) WLAN implemented as an extension to, or as an alternative for a wired LAN within a building or campus. Using electromagnetic waves, Ericsson's WLAN transmits and receives data over the air, minimizing the need for wired connections. WLANs have gained strong popularity in a number of vertical markets, including the health-care, retail, manufacturing, warehousing, and academic arenas, as well as industries which have profited from the productivity gains of using hand-held terminals and notebook computers to transmit real-time information to centralized hosts for processing. [ Return To The Top ] [ Return To The December 2000 Table Of Contents ]

Building Carrier Class IP Telephony Solutions

BY EDWARD ZWEIGEL

Today, users expect all communication services to occur with availability and quality of service equivalent to or better than the traditional phone companies offer. Carriers need to provide these services with systems that can scale quickly to meet demand and are economical and simple to manage. With these goals in mind, companies are designing product architectures utilizing COTS elements to create softswitch products. While many such products ensure only hardware uptime, some are able to deliver true carrier class service, where 99.999 percent uptime is defined as the sum of hardware, software, and operations uptime.

So what should a carrier or an OEM look for when incorporating this type of technology into their own offerings? There are several critical elements:

• Reliability -- Brand name hardware and software that provides clustering to prevent a single failure from taking down the system.
• Independent hardware giving carriers/OEMs the flexibility to accommodate any design -- Hardware and software must be scalable, allowing nodes to be added one at a time rather than in a single costly upgrade.
• A solution that speeds time-to-market -- Carriers need the tools to design hardware architecture quickly and to focus energies on developing applications and services that will generate revenue.
• A system that uses a hardened operating system, such as UNIX -- Protects the carrier from crashes, power failures, and craft mistakes.
• A system that audits and maintains itself -- Eliminates the requirements for a system administrator.
• No-fail over software -- Keeps the application running smoothly during the addition or removal (failure) of individual nodes.

Products that bring all of these elements together in a single solution offer numerous benefits to end users and carriers and save an enormous amount of money, time, and administrative headaches.

Eric Zweigel is product marketing manager for GNP, who manufactures the Continuant Softswitch line. 

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BY ED WADBROOK

In the past two years, the U.S. IP-PBX market has captured 16 percent of traditional and key system market share. Customers are moving away from legacy PBX systems and investing in open, IP-based solutions. As such, the industry is witnessing an inflection point where customers and value-added resellers are reevaluating their premise-based communications options.

PRIMED FOR A CHANGE
The current market transition is a result of customers having most of their business needs met through traditional and key business telephone systems. However, maintaining those needs is extremely expensive given the proprietary platforms of traditional and key systems. Customers have grown frustrated with the high cost of owning and maintaining closed systems. They want the communications assets and services of Fortune 500 companies, but few have the capital to invest in such infrastructures. Additionaly, they want to improve customer service and employee productivity when implementing new features and functions. As a result, the PBX market landscape is primed for a change in purchasing patterns.

Vendors are capitalizing on these unmet needs by educating the market that the landscape is changing. IP-PBX systems include a myriad of features and functionality -- previously out of reach due to cost and accessibility -- at attractive price points and superior quality.

With a proprietary system, basic functions such as computer-telephony integration (CTI) costs hundreds, even thousands of dollars to implement. In addition, connecting remote users is a costly venture. The reason these functions are so expensive with traditional and key systems is that they are tied to proprietary platforms. Meanwhile, the open, non-proprietary structure of IP-PBX systems offers customers CTI and remote user functionality at a substantially reduced cost.

A CHANGING MARKET
Each year, nearly two million businesses will replace their existing phone systems. IP-PBX vendors present an alternative to meet the customers' needs. IP-PBX systems offer a common platform that cost-effectively scales from one to thousands of users across one to hundreds of locations. Using standard Web browsers, IP-PBX systems return control to the end user for administration, and greatly eases the process of adds, moves, and changes. IP-PBX solutions can scale in the areas of users, locations, networks, and applications far more cost-effectively than proprietary, legacy PBXs.

Vendors realize that the market is changing. The principle driver is raising customer awareness that new choices exist to help grow their business, improving customer satisfaction and employee retention by investing in application-rich communications systems. Customer demand of excellence and solutions focused on their needs will drive change in the market.

Ed Wadbrook is Director of Strategy and New Market Development for 3Com Corporation. 

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