Internet Telephony Digital Issue May 2006

Where Can You Turn for a Total Solution?

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Group Publisher and Editor-In-Chief, Rich Tehrani ([email protected]) EDITORIAL A Day in the Life: Editorial Director, Greg Galitzine ([email protected]) Associate Editor, Erik Linask ([email protected]) Netcentrex TMC LABS Executive Technology Editor/CTO/VP, Tom Keating ([email protected])

ART Senior Art Director, Lisa D. Morris Art Director, Alan Urkawich So here we are, hard at work on the upcoming EXECUTIVE OFFICERS Netcentrex-sponsored Triple Play Symposium Nadji Tehrani, Chairman and CEO Rich Tehrani, President when the news hits. At first it’s a call over the Dave Rodriguez, VP of Publications cubicle wall, “Hey, Greg! Did you see this and Conferences Kevin J. Noonan, Executive Director, Netcentrex news?” Business Development Michael Genaro, VP of Marketing Suddenly I’m awash in e-mailing and making phone calls and then, lo and Editorial Offices: 203-852-6800 behold, there’s an article up on TMCnet.com explaining why the just announced Customer Service: For all customer service matters, call 203-852-6800. acquisition of Netcentrex (news - alert) by Comverse is a good thing and what it ADVERTISING SALES Sales Office Phone: 203-852-6800 means for everybody. Sr. Advertising Director - Eastern U.S.; Canada; Israel According to Brian Mahony, vice president of marketing at Netcentrex, “...the Anthony Graffeo, ext. 174, ([email protected]) move benefits Netcentrex in several key ways: Advertising Director - Midwest U.S.; • Complements the Netcentrex portfolio of VoIP-based applications with Southwest U.S.; International John Ioli, ext. 120, ([email protected]) Comverse’s market-leading billing, content, and messaging/mobility applications. Business Development Director - Western U.S. • Gives Netcentrex improved access to Tier 1 mobile service providers. Drew Thornley ([email protected]) • Provides Netcentrex with the channels and operational scale to compete more ABOUT INTERNET TELEPHONY® effectively and support customers, which will help accelerate our growth Internet telephony is revolutionizing telecommunications through the convergence of voice, video, fax, and data, creating unprecedented opportuni- especially in the Americas market and in Asia.” ties for resellers, developers, and service providers alike. INTERNET TELEPHONY® focuses on providing readers with the information neces- So let’s review: Complementary product lines; access to Tier 1 carriers; increased sary to learn about and purchase the equipment, software, and services nec- channel and operational scale... ok, then. That makes good sense. Did I mention essary to take advantage of this technology. INTERNET TELEPHONY® readers include resellers, developers, MIS/networking departments, telecom that Comverse is paying up to $180 million for the pleasure? For the pleasure of departments, datacom departments, telcos/LECs, wireless/PCS providers, ISPs, and cable companies. Netcentrex investors I’m sure, who had committed around $34 million of their SUBSCRIPTIONS hard earned money over the last few years, and will now enjoy a nice multiple on Circulation Director, Shirley Russo, ext. 157 ([email protected]) their investment. Annual digital subscriptions to INTERNET TELEPHONY®: free to qual- According to Mahony, “The combined company will be a powerhouse in the ifying U.S., Canada and foreign subscribers. Annual print subscriptions to INTERNET TELEPHONY®: free, U.S. qualifying readers; $29.00 U.S. IMS and FMC markets with offerings spanning VoIP, triple/quad play, content nonqualifying, $39.00 Canada, $60.00, foreign qualifying and nonqualifying. All orders are payable in advance in U.S. dollars drawn against a U.S. bank. and messaging applications, and billing and OSS. Connecticut residents add applicable sales tax. For more information, contact our Web site at www.itmag.com or call 203-852-6800. “All of these benefits will come much faster than our planned IPO would have EXHIBIT SALES provided. Rather than scaling Netcentrex organically, this move gives Netcentrex Sales Office Phone: 203-852-6800 Global Events Account Directors instant resources and credibility to grow our existing business model and also to Joe Fabiano ([email protected]) provide a more broad solution set in a world that is increasingly dominated by Maureen Gambino ([email protected]) IMS/FMC architectures.” Chris Waechter ([email protected]) We wish our friends at both Netcentrex and Comverse well. READER INPUT INTERNET TELEPHONY® encourages readers to contact us with their questions, comments, and suggestions. Send e-mail (addresses above), or send ordinary mail. We reserve the right to edit letters for clarity and brevi- The Show Must Go On ty. All submissions will be considered eligible for publication unless otherwise specified by the author. Getting back to the Triple Play Symposium, this year’s three-city event tour is IDENTIFICATION STATEMENT the second such gathering in as many years. Building on the success of the 2005 INTERNET TELEPHONY® magazine (ISSN: 1098-0008) is published monthly by Technology Marketing Corporation, One Technology Plaza, version, this year’s Symposium covers topics important to service providers seeking Norwalk, CT 06854 U.S.A. Annual print subscriptions: free, U.S. qualifying to offer triple play and quad play services to their subscribers including: VoIP, readers; $29.00 U.S. nonqualifying, $39.00 Canada, $60.00, foreign qualifying and nonqualifying. Periodical postage paid at Norwalk, CT and at additional IPTV, IP-VoD, IP-Video Middleware, OSS, FMC, and IMS. Attendees will mailing offices. Postmaster: Send address changes to: INTERNET TELE- PHONY®, Technology Marketing Corporation, One Technology Plaza, explore triple play business models, participate in service provider executive Norwalk, CT 06854 USA. round-tables, see the latest available market research from industry experts, view INTERNET TELEPHONY® is a registered trademark of Technology Marketing Corporation. Copyright © 2006 Technology Marketing innovative triple play demonstrations, and attend valuable networking receptions, Corporation. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or part without per- mission of the publisher is prohibited. where they can develop relationships with like minded individuals. REPRINTS AND LIST RENTALS The complete schedule for the multi-city 2006 Triple Play Symposium is as follows: For authorized reprints of articles appearing in INTERNET TELEPHONY®, please contact Reprint Management Services at 1-800-290-5460 • • June 13 – Dallas, Texas [email protected] • www.reprintbuyer.com. • June 15 – Boston, Massachusetts For list rentals, please contact Glenn Freedman at [email protected] or call 516-358-5478, ext. 101. • June 21 – Paris, France A Technology Marketing Publication, To register, or for more information, log on to: One Technology Plaza, Norwalk, CT 06854 U.S.A. http://tripleplay.tmcnet.com. Phone: 203-852-6800 Fax: 203-853-2845 and 203-838-4070 INTERNET TELEPHONY® March 2006 1 Go To Table of Contents | Go To Ad Index Volume 9/ Number 5 May 2006 Contents

IN EACH ISSUE 8 Publisher’s Outlook Making Sense of it All By Rich Tehrani, Publisher, Internet Telephony

COLUMNS 58 Inside Networking Getting Users Turned Onto IP Telephony: Office Anywhere By Tony Rybczynski

60 Regulation Watch VoIP & E911 By John Cimko

62 VoIPeering ENUM Lands On Wall Street By Hunter Newby

64 Enterprise View The Effect of the Third Screen on Business Applications By Michael Marchioni

66 Disaster Preparedness The Internet Telephony Solution By Rich Tehrani & Max Schroeder 94

DEPARTMENTS EDITORIAL SPONSORSHIP SERIES 1 The VoIP Authority 16 Slow and Steady: A Measured 20 News Analysis: Cable Industry (Finally) Embraces SIP, Approach to Migrating to IP Aligns With IMS Realm 22 Industry News 24 68 Rich Tehrani’s Executive Suite: Centillium’s Faraj Aalaei 72 Technology Selection Guide: VoIP Testing Tools 81 Special Focus: 60 Seconds With... Michael Nadeau 82 Case Study: Clark County School District 84 Case Study: Tift County Schools 86 Special Focus: Marketing VoIP Services — A Whole New Ball Game 88 Special Focus: 60 Seconds With... Brian Mahony 110 VoIP Marketplace 112 Ad Index

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QUOTE OF THE MONTH: “You might argue that, ‘my new $500 color screen VoIP phone has a built-in browser!’ OK, so with the 12 DTMF buttons and the left/right/up/down arrows, try to navigate to your favorite Web “site, select the ‘contact us’ option, highlight a telephone

number and hit the call button. Is this how you really want to use your phone? There is simply

not enough real estate on the

phone screen, the browser does- n’t render the HTML correctly, and the UI buttons on the “ phone are no match to a mouse “ and keyboard for gathering and entering information. Your PC has access to all the information you use during work communications. So wouldn’t it make 106 more sense for your softphone to interact with all FEATURE ARTICLES these applications?” 90 Coopetition: An Opportunity for Cable and — Fergal Glynn, page 98 Mobile Network Market Expansion By Mike Pastor

94 The Enterprise VoIP Wars: 35 The Hackers Strike Back By Bob Decker

98 Leveraging Softphones for Success in the Enterprise By Fergal Glynn

102 VoIP and the “Myth of QoS” Dude By Eric Bear

106 Implementing the New PoEPlus Standard By Keith Hopwood

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Contents

WHAT’S ON TMCNET.COM RIGHT NOW To stay current and to keep up-to-date with all that’s happening in the fast-paced world of IP telephony, just point your browser to http://www.tmcnet.com for all the latest news and analysis. With more than 5.9 million unique page views per month, translating into over 700,000 visitors, TMCnet.com is where you need to be if you want to know what’s happening in the world of VoIP.

Here’s a list of several articles currently on our site.

Cable Makes Headway with VoIP Services Top 10 Visitors to TMCnet.com (by Sprint and its four cable partners are making significant progress State/Province) integrating their respective offerings and will be demonstrating key features promised by the joint venture when it was formed back in 1. Virginia 6. Texas November 2005. 2. California 7. Massachusetts http://tmcnet.com/280.1 3. New Jersey 8. Illinois 4. New York 9. Washington 5. Ontario 10. Florida VoIP and IP Videoconferencing Convergence Assessment Enterprises have come to realize the benefits of converged voice, video and data networks. A single IP network infrastructure that carries voice and video signals, as well as legacy data that can be installed, maintained, managed, and modified much more easily, and less expensively, than separate voice, video and data networks. http://tmcnet.com/281.1

VoIPs Benefits Start at Cost Savings, But Lead to Customer WHAT’S ON TMCNET.COM RIGHT NOW Service Transformation TMC’s VoIP for SMB Community When organizations consider replacing their TDM voice infrastruc- The VoIP for SMB Community is the leading tures with Internet IP-based communication infrastructures, cost online resource for business-class broadband cutting is usually their primary motivation. That’s sound thinking, services that combine voice and data. This because VoIP networks are more economical to build and maintain site is your primary destination for the most than circuit-switched networks on just about every front. relevant news, education, and trends analysis. http://tmcnet.com/282.1 But that’s not all. VoIP for SMB will help you navigate through the myriad of service WiFi/Cellular Convergence Standards to be Defined providers and plans — Empowering you with Convergence is not a new idea — but it may be the hottest topic the knowledge to make the right decision for around. How nice would it be to be able to have your mobile device your business. Come check it out at switch seamlessly between your home WiFi network, your cellular http://www.voipforsmb.tmcnet.com. network, and your WLAN connection at work. Sponsored by Covad. http://tmcnet.com/283.1

TMC’s Triple Play Channel Cell Phone Industry Steps Closer to VoIP The Triple Play Channel on TMCnet.com fea- For years, Wi-Fi telephones and walkie-talkie-like communicators tures the latest news, articles, and case stud- have been available for hospitals and offices. Now, manufacturers ies in the booming Triple Play space. To visit and mobile carriers are preparing to link standard cellular networks TMCnet.com’s voice channel just point your to the mishmash of Wi-Fi hotspots, a move that will expand cover- browser to: http://www.tmcnet.com/chan- age and perhaps make cheaper mobile minutes a reality. nels/triple-play/. Sponsored by NetCentrex. http://tmcnet.com/284.1

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CMY

K By Rich Tehrani

Making Sense of it All

Spring is in full force here in Connecticut, which is where TMC’s headquarters are located. I know this for a fact as there have been two days this past week where I didn’t need to wear my jacket — I just carried it into and out of the office. This has been the mildest winter I recall in years and while the meteorologists might disagree, I believe it’s due to the heat being generated by the IP communications space.

The speed at which new announcements are emerging is IP-PBX. More than one person has suggested Vonage (news - great, but it makes it difficult for those of you on the pur- alert)needs this sort of toolbar functionality to make it a truly chasing end to make sense of all the noise. I decided to present a digest of some of the recent announcements with some killer telephony service. opinion and analysis. Hopefully you can get some informa- Another sign of massive growth in VoIP is that softswitch tion from this column that will help you make a purchasing maker Sonus (news - alert)hit 19 billion minutes a month decision. carried by their customers! This is quite a milestone. The Verizon (news - alert) has noticed that there is money to be company continues to be committed to IMS and warns that made in managing in-house PBXs. A number of years back I other vendors who look to be IMS players aren’t decoupling suggested companies like Verizon get into the business of their architectures sufficiently. helping companies deploy WiFi networks. This is a step in that direction as they can manage your PBX or host your PBX Moving across the pond, Teleware (news - alert)is a hosted service via Broadsoft’s (news - alert)software. service provider in the UK that is 14 years old and provides Why would you want Verizon managing your IP PBX some leading-edge services that allow SMB/mobile workers to install you ask? There are a number of good reasons starting increase their productivity. They are in the Just in Time with not having to hire a whole new staff to deploy your solu- Communications space and are looking for U.S. partners who tion. How about having an external opinion on what you want to provide their services on our shores. need without politics being involved? Finally you don’t need On to wireless, Glenayre (news - alert)has a new applica- to hire certified engineers to install and maintain your equip- tion that allows a voice mailbox to have embedded ment. This is a smart move for Verizon, as it guarantees VoiceXML, which means service providers can do things like another revenue stream for them. By the way, Verizon couples send video or voice messages to subscribers with music clips. their service with a class-leading SLA: three-and-a-half hours The subscribers can purchase the songs if they like and since to repair a problem and guarantee voice quality as well. the user is already authenticated in their own mailbox the Speaking of hot, VoIP is hot in Brazil as evidenced by ses- transaction doesn’t need a credit card. sion border controller vendor Netrake’s (news - alert)recent This is a killer service in my opinion, and it bodes well for announcement that they are partnering with Telefonica Brazil those people waiting to see how service providers will make (news - alert)and NEC on a fully tested converged network. more money to help pay for all the wireless and wireline What may be most impressive is that the solution will support investments they are currently making. 3.5 million SIP endpoints! This The hosted VoIP market continues to heat up as evidenced is the sort of announcement that by a talk I had with shows how VoIP solutions are Intelliverse,(news - alert) a com- indeed now being deployed in pany that changed its name massive numbers. from VoiceCom as it merged with Inuntius. They provide a Back to Broadsoft — I finally VoIP solutions are indeed now being got a chance to see the hosted platform for VoIP Broadsoft toolbar that integrates deployed in massive numbers. resellers with full private labeling with applications such as MS and provisioning built in. There Outlook and MS Word. The are many templates that the toolbar is the future of telecom company provides and you can as you shouldn’t be forced to customize their services exten- start a new application just to sively to create a friends and make a new call. Service providers can allow users to cus- family type plan for example. You can also chose from a vari- tomize the telecom toolbar with a logo and intranet links if ety of CPE devices from the likes of Belkin (news - alert)or they desire. Interactive Intelligence (news - alert)subsidiary you can connect with videophones. They can fulfill and also Vonexus (news - alert)has similar integration with Microsoft ship the products. There is also full support available. The software. But Vonexus is not a hosted service, but rather an point here is that you can become a service provider overnight with limited expense. Don’t underestimate the marketing

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“Emergent enabled our new company to hit the ground running with leading-edge software solutions at a tremendous value.”

James Ballard Smith Chief Operating Officer nZon, a new global communications InZon Corporation Icorporation utilizing VoIP technologies, needed proven, reliable software solutions that out-performed competitors in capability Emergent offers solutions for what you need and value. today, and where you’re going tomorrow. “As a growing company we required an Build on it, grow with it, run with it. adaptable, innovative and flexible solution. Emergent was the clear choice,” says InZon Retail & Enterprise Voice Over Broadband Solutions COO James Ballard Smith. Session Controller Emergent’s ENTICE solutions closely matched Softswitch InZon’s start-up demands. And Emergent’s products are flexible and practical, able to Converged VoIP Gateway keep pace with InZon as the company grows Enhanced Services into new service areas. Learn more about Emergent’s solutions for your “Emergent is seasoned, with people who have business at www.emergent-netsolutions.com been developing leading-edge software for years. I work with people I know, who can solve our problems. Emergent offers common sense cost structures coupled with out-front software solutions.

“Recommend Emergent to others? I do that all the time.”

more info • 1.888.879.3674 • www.emergent-netsolutions.com expenses needed to become a service provider, but by the mobile communications technology developed by Motorola same token if you have an affinity group it may be easy to (news - alert)allowing for push to talk. start a phone company to capture their business. Movero (news - alert) is interesting for a few reasons. The Digium/Asterisk (news - alert)seems to be moving faster first is they are transitioning their call center from Avaya every time I see the company. Mark Spencer, the company’s (news - alert)to Asterisk and say they will save $1,300 per seat well-known founder, showed me a series of new cards that do and hope to achieve better QoS! The company has a call cen- a variety of things such as premium echo-cancellation and ter that supports mobility devices. For example if you have a others that offload transcoding from the CPU. The company problem with a Blackberry you call RIM (news - alert)and if has a similar model to Skype (news - alert)in some ways in ws that most of the products are free but as the base of free users you have a problem with Cingular, (ne - alert)you call grows so does the volume of paid products. Cingular. If you don’t know where your problem is you call D2 Technologies (news - alert)has come a long way since I Movero — who can also support the device and wireless net- saw them last. They now have a silicon independent develop- work problems. I asked how easy it is to build their call cen- ment environment allowing the OEM/ODM market to use ters in Texas and was told that with all the call center jobs the best silicon for their application. They use a single RISC- being lost to India from the Texas computer companies they based CPU as opposed to a CPU and a DSP to maximize are having an easy time hiring! Good for them. power utilization and minimize cost. In addition to chip inde- The MVNO or mobile virtual network operator market is taking off around the world and allows a company to resell a pendence they are OS independent and work with off-the- cellular network. Why would someone want to do this you shelf operating systems and have an API layer that allows their ask? Well the best reason to become an MVNO is that you solutions to work on another operating system if needed. want to reach an audience that is not being targeted currently UTStarcom (news - alert)is such a large company I could or you want to extend your wired network or you have con- fill this entire issue just talking about all their products. Lately tent you want to distribute wirelessly. I have seen a really useful demo of a Hummer equipped with Telcordia (news - alert)is one of the companies that are sup- their technology allowing communications to take place in a plying the MVNO market with infrastructure that supports post- disaster scenario. This demo was done in conjunction such things as billing. They further allow you to have a flexi- with Qualcomm. (news - alert) In addition the company has EVDO revision A equipment, ble and configurable system that allows you for example to which provides screaming fast broadband wireless access. I alter the parameters of your business on-the-fly. also learned there are 50 million users on the company’s For example, let’s say you see that a competitor launches a softswitch so far. They also have a feature server that connects new service allowing a free music download for every 10 GSM and WiFi networks and 50,000 users are supported on downloaded. You can come back with 100 free minutes of just two blades. The next release of the server will support talk for every five downloaded. These are just random exam- CDMA/WiFi networks. ples, mind you, but should give you an idea of what these Accuris Networks (news - alert)is an Ireland-based compa- systems allow you to do. Telcordia is currently the only part- ny that focuses on fixed mobile convergence (FMC) solutions ner certified on the Sprint (news - alert)wireless network such as WiFi/GSM or DECT and GSM. They can help a which puts them in an enviable position. cable company with an MVNO relationship to provide seam- Perhaps the most exciting MVNO announcement recent- less wireless coverage, for example. With so many people in ly from a Telcordia customer is the Disney (quote - news - the market I asked company executives why they are worth alert) phone that is a parent’s dream. It allows a parent to considering, and they told me they provided FMC solutions make sure their child isn’t speaking more than they should in the 1996 Atlanta Olympics. At the time the networks they or text messaging more than they should. Of course, your used were GSM and TDMA. take on these measures of con- They have also allowed FMC trol may vary but the parents with the Iridium (news - at TMC seem to think this is a alert)Satellite network and GSM. great service. They say that while other com- For those situations where panies have been coming into wireline communications is this space they have focused on The dual mode/FMC space is going slow or unavailable, Multi-Tech new features such as least cost (ne routing (LCR). The dual to be a huge market in my opinion. ws - alert) has launched a mode/FMC space is going to be suite of cards that can be a huge market in my opinion so inserted into a PC to give wire- this company is well positioned less connectivity over a variety as an early leader to benefit from of networks such as EDGE, the inherent growth and is also a GPRS, or CDMA. Some natu- likely takeover candidate. rals for such technologies are The Chinese market is bristling with telecom companies emergency responders, lottery terminals, tax preparers, POS, aching to become the next global communications leader as and construction. Multi-Tech was one of the most popular evidenced by the UTStarcom news above. ZTE, (news - modem companies in the eighties so it is good to see them alert)with 30,000 employees, is also looking to be one of these adapting to the brave new world of telecom in 2006. companies and with an arsenal of products in CDMA, How many people are still listening to archives of their TDMA, and VoIP they are in all the right spaces. They are favorite music courtesy of Napster? (news - alert)While I don’t also providing many IDEN solutions to the market. IDEN know the answer to that question I am sure you’ll be interest- stands for Integrated Digital Enhanced Network and is ed to hear that Napster has inked a deal with Ericsson where- 10 INTERNET TELEPHONY® May 2006 Subscribe FREE online at http://www.itmag.com Go To Table of Contents | Go To Ad Index Cant_InternTelephAd.025 3/3/06 3:21 PM Page 1

Introducing a new composition — Excel Switching and Brooktrout Technology have become Cantata Technology.

Still keeping you in harmony with innovation. Defined as a rich musical composition in which talents converge to create something truly unique, a cantata is a work far more innovative, integrated, and engaging than the sum of its parts. Introducing Cantata Technology — a company born from combining Excel, a leading provider of carrier class IP and TDM enabling solutions, with Brooktrout Technology, a leading provider of IP fax and media processing solutions. For you this means access to unrivaled, proven platforms for deploying innovative communications solutions. www.cantata.com ©2006 Cantata Technology, Inc. All Rights Reserved. by they allow service providers to give their customers access Broadband you have seen he small purple V in the lower right to the Napster library of two million tracks. (No, that is not a hand corner of your screen that turns into a tornado when it typo.) Ericsson is selling the hosted service to wireless carriers is working. When it works, it speeds up your connection con- around the world. They have a slick mobile, very Napster like siderably. interface and the product is called Napster to Go, What the company does is optimize transport. As we The President of Napster, Brad Duea told me he feels this is know TCP/IP was designed for wired networks and there are a great way for his company to combat the entrenched nature inherent inefficiencies that the company squeezes out of the of iPods as there are so many more mobile devices than there network. They also make up for poor wireless connections are iPods in the world. As long as your device has WAP or and in the process reduce the costs wireless service providers incur by increasing spectrum and equipment utilization. J2ME (for now) you are all set. There is a powerful recommen- They will soon focus on mobile devices with a thinner client dation engine that should keep operators and customers happy and they are hoping to help us have better mobile entertain- by increasing ARPU. I asked about the Napster churn rate and ment and gaming experiences. was told that while it is not disclosed, it has come down. CGI (formerly American Management Systems) (news - If you haven’t heard, Level 3 (news - alert)may have become alert) is one of those companies that has kept a very low pro- quite a good investment. The company is buying up competi- file but is quite important in the communications space. With tors around the country and in doing so is playing Monopoly 25,000 employees, they are a powerhouse in fields such as with nation’s fiber. What this does is increase the price for BPO as well as Tier 1 carrier consulting. They also sell to fiber substantially. I have heard reports of fiber costs doubling large enterprise customers and have strong practices in govern- and tripling recently. This is not 100 percent attributable to ment, healthcare, and other areas. The company is expert in Level 3 of course, as there are other companies buying cable rolling out new services based on IMS and SIP and I am very companies and the demand for fiber is increasing steadily. impressed with the many people in the telecom practice I What the company is doing with this fiber is things like have encountered. reselling it to VoIP and other providers and they are also I had a breakfast meeting with Soma Networks (news - chasing wireless providers allowing a company to bypass the alert)and was excited at the prospect as I remember Soma PSTN altogether by utilizing a fiber ring in multiple geo- being something good from my past reading. I looked it up graphic areas. and here’s what I found: I got my hands on a Motorola (news - alert)Q and was “…an intoxicating plant juice probably from a leafless impressed at how this Windows Mobile device was able to be vine (Sarcostemma intermedium) of the milkweed family so thin and have such a crisp clear screen with great sound used in ancient India as an offering to the gods and as a quality. The keyboard is too small for my fingers but is about drink of immortality by worshipers in Vedic ritual and the same size as a Treo. On the plus side the word completion worshiped as a Vedic god.” is first rate and among the best if not the best I have seen to Breakfast was good but wasn’t intoxicating. Perhaps I date. The company also showed me the A910 that is a quad- should have had the mimosa with my bagel and lox. The band phone handling GSM, WiFi, Edge, GPRS and it runs company with the intoxicating name may have such an effect on Linux. The form-factor of the device is pretty similar to on operators who use their WiMAX solutions to generate the very popular V710. revenue as the company focuses on the business case for Currently mobile and wireline operators are scared of VoIP WiMAX. but perhaps there is a way to get them to embrace it. Soma’s customers will potentially give their clients a buzz Bridgeport Networks (news - alert)has come out with some- with a package that includes a base station and an ATA with a thing called a Mobile Stick which is like an iPod shuffle. You SIP user agent that allows fax transmission and VoIP. use the stick as an extension of a wireless network allowing Aside from VoIP, the company is focusing on maximizing you to take your mobile calls over an IP network. the radius of coverage. One of the ways this is done is with at The way it works is with a software download of a VoIP tuned antenna in the ATA that is supposed to work seamlessly client when the stick is inserted. There are so many benefits to — even in the basement of a building allowing your customers to have such a device. Imagine being There you have it — a smattering of some of the interesting able to take minutes off your wireless network and put them companies I have seen as of late and what they are up to. I on VoIP. There is tremendous savings potential. In addition have been in a bewildering number of meetings as of late try- you can give your customers applications via VoIP they can- ing to glean some sense of where the communications market not access via cell phones and in addition your customers are is headed. In the end, it seems that customers are winning out ensured a secure connection. Bridgeport thinks that Skype as there are so many options to choose from. I should amend would have much less intrinsic value if this sort of application that to “educated customers” because one of the challenges was rolled out years ago. customers face is the need to understand all the choices before them. Hopefully this column, this magazine, our Web site — Another interesting mobile company is Brightpoint (news - TMCnet — and our TMC events can help you in this alert)as they are responsible for the global distribution of wire- endeavor. Make sure to check out the VoIP Demo show less and now VoIP devices. They shipped 42 million devices (http://www.voip-demo.com) this August in Santa Clara, CA last year alone. As you might imagine, VoIP is a huge area of to see some of the best and brightest companies in IP growth for them. Communications on one stage, in one place. IT Another wireless player looking to expand its influence is Venturi Wireless. (news - alert)If you use Verizon Wireless

12 INTERNET TELEPHONY® May 2006 Subscribe FREE online at http://www.itmag.com Go To Table of Contents | Go To Ad Index REPELS INTRUDERS, EMBRACES SIP PROTOCOL

Moving to VoIP shouldn’t create security issues for your since encryption is a standard feature, it is impossible for business. It should eliminate them. That’s why the Zultys anyone to intercept sensitive communications. Best of all, MX250 IP PBX runs on a real-time Linux operating system the Zultys MX250 does all this straight out of the box. To that is secure and not learn more about adding secure vulnerable to attack. And, VoIP, access www.zultys.com/it. VoIP vs. VoIQ

File name: Snake_1p_IT_withicons.qxd IO#: NONE AGENCY: JWT Technology (408) 494-1600 AD SIZE: Trim: 8 1/8” x 10 7/8”, Live: 7” x 10”, Bleed: 8 3/8” x 11 1/8” CLIENT: ZULTYS PUBLICATION: Internet Telephony AD NAME: Zultys Snake Ad with Icons FILM SHIP DATE: ______(Film House To Fill Upon Shipping)

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0 2 5 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 95 98 100 CYAN MAGENTA YELLOW BLACK Gateway_Advertorial_mech.qxd 3/30/06 6:15 PM Page 1

IP Media Gateways: Bridging the Worlds of TDM and IP

The Old and the New

As Internet Protocol (IP) networks proliferate, and Voice over IP (VoIP) and other IP-based communications services and applications enjoy unprecedented popularity, a large number of enterprises still have legacy, TDM-based phone equipment installed in their premises. In addition, as service providers migrate to an all IP-based converged network infrastructure, most must still support TDM-based customers who are connected to the network with digital and analog phones.

Avoiding the “Forklift” Upgrade A Full Suite of Solutions For Enterprises Many of these enterprises are keenly interested in cutting and Service Providers their communications costs by implementing a VoIP solution, A new, full suite of cost-effective and highly flexible IP Media but are concerned about “forklift upgrading” their legacy Gateway solutions from Intel – from turnkey appliances to all telephone infrastructure. They need solutions that will allow the ingredients necessary to build your own embedded IP them to gradually migrate to an IP-based communications media gateways – have been designed to ensure that legacy environment while at the same time preserving their TDM technology can co-exist with new IP Communications investments in legacy Private Branch Exchange (PBX) solutions for many years to come. systems and proprietary digital phone sets.

Service providers are also eager to offer new converged IP Intel NetStructure® PBX-IP Media Gateways The Intel NetStructure® PBX-IP media gateway appliance network services, and need flexible, scalable, and cost-effective VoIP Media Gateway Reference Platforms Committed to Your Success offers a turnkey solution for integrating legacy PBXs and solutions that will allow them to serve both their new VoIP The VoIP Media Gateway Reference Platform is an integrated In addition to providing all the essential ingredients for delivering proprietary digital phones to an IP network. Ideal for and old Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) subscribers white-box media gateway designed to introduce VoIP industry-leading IP Media Gateway solutions, Intel provides enterprise-based Interactive Voice Response (IVR), IP-PBX, with voice, data and multimedia convergence applications and application developers and system integrators to the flexibility valuable resources—such as the Intel® Communications Least Cost Routing, and Contact Center applications, the Intel services in a reliable, scalable and timely fashion. and media-processing-specific features of a gateway solution Alliance, with nearly 200 solutions provider members—to help NetStructure PBX-IP Media Gateway appliances feature seamless built on Intel® products, including Intel NetStructure® Host enable service providers to quickly move to new IP services integration with much of the worldwide installed base of PBXs Enabling An Elegant Migration to IP Media Processing Software and Digital Network Interface that delight customers and dramatically shorten time-to-revenue, and digital phones, and support Fax-Over-IP and key IP Media gateways convert either voice or signaling information Boards, and Paraxip* Gateway software. It was created to and allow enterprises to move to enhanced VoIP applications supplementary services such as Message Waiting Indication from traditional TDM networks into a format suitable for provide a turnkey platform for development, interoperability without abandoning their investment in their legacy (MWI), transfer, hold, ANI and DNIS. transmission over IP networks, and are used to extend PBX testing, and pilot deployments. telephone infrastructure. functionality into an IP network, enable toll bypass between Intel NetStructure® T1/E1 IP Media Gateways enterprise sites using VoIP, or use legacy digital phones with Signaling Gateways For larger enterprises and service providers interested in offering an IP network. They are an ideal way to provide enterprises Service providers use SS7 and SIGTRAN signaling gateways new IP-based enhanced services, the Intel IP Media Gateway with an elegant and highly cost-effect migration path to IP to relay the upper layers of the SS7 protocol across an IP For more information about this new suite of IP appliances are also available in single and dual-span T1/E1 communications that not only preserves a company’s investment network, allowing next-generation networks to use current Media Gateway solutions, and how Intel can help configurations in a 19-inch 1U rack-mountable and easily in legacy equipment, but also provides the means to gradually circuit-switched and mobile network value-added services. you bridge the worlds of TDM and IP, contact your stackable form factor, enabling quick and easy scalability. And deploy new feature-rich IP endpoints such as IP phones and SS7 signaling can also be offloaded onto the IP network or like the PBX-IP Media Gateways, the T1/EI IP Media Gateways local authorized distributor, or visit us online at PC-based softphones, and deploy new capabilities such as directly to IP endpoints. Scaling from 4 to 128 SS7 links ,SS7 have been fully regression tested to ensure interoperability www.intel.com/go/iptoday teleworker and virtual IP contact center applications. signaling gateways from Intel provide SS7 and SIGTRAN with all industry-leading PBX vendors to ensure connectivity for multichassis call control, wireless, or IN IP Media gateways also enable service providers to reduce their “plug and play” operation. applications. They run a wide range of SS7 signaling protocols time to market in offering next generation, productivity boosting and local variants, enabling worldwide deployment in a IP-based voice, data, and multimedia convergence services, and Board-Level Gateways variety of applications. provide true, converged network operation and performance. For application developers who require embedded gateway functionality, Intel NetStructure® Host Media Processing Software Release 2.0 for Windows and Intel NetStructure Copyright© 2006, Intel Corporation. Intel and the Intel logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Intel Corporation or its subsidiaries in the United Digital Network and Station Interface Boards are key ingredients States and other countries. AdvancedTCA is a registered trademark of the PCI Industrial Computers Manufacturers Group. in building a cost-competitive architecture for IP-PBX and contact center applications. A Special Editorial Series Sponsored By Intel® Featuring Today's Leaders in IP Communications

for enterprises with PBXs. Connected Slow and Steady: A Measured externally, it offers an IP solution that works with current legacy equipment. It supports H.323 or SIP-based applica- Approach to Migrating to IP tions with fax running on network servers, remote terminals, or other By Greg Galitzine, Internet Telephony Magazine devices as well as RTP/RTCP for delivery xecutives are understandably loath install and maintain. And they need to of voice over the LAN or WAN. The to swap out a fully functional scale as the needs of the enterprise grow. solution furthermore supports a variety phone system for a relatively of compression algorithms, including E G.711, G.723.1, and G.729AB. unproven VoIP-based enterprise voice Media gateways allow enterprises to solution, even if they are aware that the maintain their investment in their PBX newer technology might result in systems as well as the expensive handsets Intel is also moving one step deeper into tremendous cost savings and increased deployed on each worker's desk, while at the core network with their Intel employee productivity and business the same time opening up a world of NetStructure T1/E1-IP Media Gateway. process efficiency. innovative IP-based applications for The solution offers a "plug-and-play" increased productivity. The end result is a approach and is geared toward service It seems that they want VoIP for all the mixed telecom environment that allows providers who want to upgrade their promises the technology offers, but are users to take advantage of the latest next-generation offerings without com- afraid of ripping out and completely applications and services while protect- pletely overhauling their equipment. The replacing their legacy PBXs. Well, the ing the enterprise's existing investment gateway is designed to enable offerings good news is that they can deploy VoIP in infrastructure. like hosted IP PBX services, IP Centrex, in a piecemeal fashion, eschewing the and enhanced messaging servers. It also complete soup-to-nuts scrapping of their Intel NetStructure Media Gateways offers support for supplementary services current investments. The Intel NetStructure PBX-IP media on the CAS, NI-2 and QSIG protocols, gateway is designed to allow a phased enabling functions like call transfer and There are any number of reasons to con- migration to IP, making it a good choice forwarding, call waiting, and caller ID sider going slowly when it comes to for enterprises not yet ready or willing to without any additional programming deploying VoIP. Choosing to upgrade completely abandon their investment in required. The gateway is a good fit for telecommunications systems in a meas- legacy PBX equipment. enterprises interested in deploying appli- ured fashion - division by division - cations like remote office connectivity, allows IT personnel to maintain control The gateway sits between the PBX or a PBX extensions, call centers, long-dis- during the transition period. Any prob- digital handset and a LAN, WAN, or man- tance consolidation and IP media servers. lems that pop up in early phases of aged packet network, and converts digital deployment can be worked out before PBX signals into a format suitable for As media gateway functionality moves migrating the next group of users. A slow transmission over standard IP networks. deeper into the core of the IP network, approach also ensures that the new tech- service providers are free to roll out a vari- nology works in tandem with the exist- Each gateway unit contains eight digital ety of enhanced multimedia services while ing legacy equipment, minimizing the PBX or digital station interfaces and a adding IP support to their networks at a impact of phasing out technology that 10/100 BaseT Ethernet connection for rate that is comfortable to them. By elimi- employees are used to. connecting to a LAN. An analog loop nating the need for large-scale equipment start unit designed for voice mail and upgrades, service providers can continue to Of course a key element of any phased unified messaging applications is also support legacy phones, PBXs, and services migration entails using a gateway to available to connect to PBXs that do not while quickly rolling out IP-based func- bridge between the old and the new. have an appropriate digital interface. The tionality. This makes core-based IP media These so-called appliance gateways or analog loop start unit supports several gateways a valuable stepping stone for any media gateways need to transcode serial protocols for integrating IP appli- carrier interested in migrating to IP in a between legacy standards and next-gen- cations to PBXs that support the SMDI, timely and cost effective manner. IT eration standards such as SIP and H.323, MCI, or MD110 protocols. thus enabling communication between Greg Galitzine is editorial director of Internet traditional public switched telephone The gateway is an Intel building block Telephony magazine. networks (PSTN) and IP-based net- that provides a simple, cost-effective Laura Stotler writes about IP Communications works. These gateways need to be easy to transition to voice and data convergence and related topics for TMCnet.

16 INTERNET TELEPHONY® May 2006 Subscribe FREE online at http://www.itmag.com Go To Table of Contents | Go To Ad Index Sample Deployments The Intel NetStructure PBX-IP Media • Protects investment in legacy equipment. PBX and want to preserve their investment Gateway and T1-E1 IP Media Gateway • Prevents disruption of service. in legacy phone equipment. can be used to connect IP telephones to a • Reduces development costs. legacy PBX, integrate network-hosted Scenario 1 is an example of an emulating applications with the PBX, extend the PBX The type of system enabled with this gate- media gateway. Scenario 2 is an example of a to branch offices, and integrate various way is very different from a toll bypass gate- different model called a phone-driving unit. voice, fax, and call processing capabilities in way setup. To create a toll bypass configu- an enterprise LAN or WAN environment. ration, gateways are placed at two different Scenario 3: Deploying Converged sites, and the corporate WAN carries calls Multimedia IP Services Throughout These media gateways can function in sev- between the two sites to avoid the PSTN the Enterprise

eral scenarios: and consequent toll charges. LAN Centralized HMP SIP Phone Scenario 1 — Emulates digital station sets Media Server Nortel Brussels to a digital PBX. This mode uses H.323 or The Intel NetStructure T1-E1 IP Media Meridian® WAN SIP standards to interface with H.323 or Gateway has quite a different function. It Intel NetStructure® PBX-IP Media Gateway SIP devices, such as IP phones or soft- is an IP-enablement tool that allows IP SIP PBX/Analog phones, on the IP-based network at a main technology to be introduced easily and Legacy Phones Intel NetStructure® T1/E1 IP Media Gateway Siemens site or a home office. gradually into a legacy environment at Hicom® Munich Scenario 2 — Connects remote offices to a the pace that the enterprise finds most Intel NetStructure® PBX-IP Media main-office PBX over a managed packet cost-effective for its workload and cur- Gateway PBX/Analog network. Basically, the gateway extends rent infrastructure. Legacy Phones Avaya® Legacy Phones PBX functionality to digital phones at a G3 PBX Ericsson Stockholm Scenario 2: Connecting Legacy MD110® remote site. PSTN

Phones to an IP-PBX Intel NetStructure® Scenario 3 — Drives proprietary digital PBX-IP Media Gateway station sets from an IP device, such as an Just as IP phones can be used with a circuit- PBX/Analog IP-PBX or IP-server. switched PBX because of media gateways, Legacy Phones Headquarters Remote Offices legacy phone sets can be used with an IP- Figure 3. Connecting Legacy Phones to an IP-PBX. H.323 or SIP Telephone Sets Managed PBX with the Intel NetStructure PBX-IP Data Network Gatekeeper media gateway (Figure 2). The Intel NetStructure T1-E1 IP Media Gateway along with Intel

H.323 or SIP Managed Data Base Station NetStructure Host Media Processing SIP or H.323 Network PBX Station Software supports the development Interface Gateway (Phone Driving)† of cost-effective IP media servers T1/E1 IP Media Gateway Desktop with Microsoft NetMeeting* or Other Soft Client accessible from both PSTN and IP

Station Lines networks. IP media servers can pro-

H.323 or SIP vide a central and efficient messaging Application Server Digital Digital (UM, CC, IVR, etc.) IP-Based PBX Telephone Telephone PBX server in existing TDM voice infra- Branch/Remote Office †Intel® NetStructureTM PBX-IP Media Gateway structures by servicing remote loca- Figure 1. Connecting IP End Points to the Corporate PBX. Figure 2. Connecting Legacy Phones to an IP-PBX. tions via an IP network. Scenario 1: Adding IP at a Corporate Office In this scenario (Figure 3), both the T1-E1 The media gateway appliances from Intel can Scenario 2 is very common in market seg- IP Media Gateway and the PBX IP Media be used to connect H.323 or SIP phones, ments such as retail. Retailers often have Gateway are used to deploy multimedia softphones, or H.323 or SIP applications digital phones installed throughout their applications in the headquarters location servers to the corporate PBX (Figure 1). stores, but need to migrate to an IP-PBX and to remote offices around the world. for new applications to remain competi- In this example, using the Intel NetStructure tive. The PBX-IP Media Gateway allows T1-E1 IP Media Gateway to supply a link retailers to install an IP-PBX, but continue For More Information Please Visit: between a legacy PBX and new IP technol- to use their legacy phones without rewiring ogy can supply the following benefits: each of their stores. However, all types of • Provides a low-cost way to add IP organizations can use the PBX-IP media technology to an existing legacy system. gateway if they wish to install an IP-based

Subscribe FREE online at http://www.itmag.com INTERNET TELEPHONY® May 2006 17 Go To Table of Contents | Go To Ad Index ads_2-06.qxp 2/21/2006 11:19 AM Page 1

Copyright © 2005, Intel Corporation, Intel is a trademark or registered trademark of Intel Corporation or its subsidiaries in the United States and other countries. *Other names and brands may be claimed as the property of others. As a convenience to its customers, Intel provides these web links. The linked sites are independent of Intel, and Intel does not warrant and cannot be responsible for their contents *Alexa.com is an Amazon.com company that ranks Web sites based on traffic levels. TMC, TMCnet, Intel and IPCommunications.com are not affiliated with or endorsed by Alexa.com. Partners_5-06.qxp 4/11/2006 11:58 AM Page 1

The following companies are sponsors of the ipcommunications.com website and are part of the Intel® Communications Alliance, a community of communications and embedded developers and solutions providers committed to the development of modular, standards-based solutions on Intel technologies.

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Copyright © 2006, Intel Corporation, Intel is a trademark or registered trademark of Intel Corporation or its subsidiaries in the United States and other countries. *Other names and brands may be claimed as the property of others. As a convenience to its customers, Intel provides these web links. The linked sites are independent of Intel, and Intel does not warrant and cannot be responsible for their contents. Cable Industry (Finally) Embraces SIP, Aligns With IMS Realm

News Analysis By Robert Liu TMCnet Wireless and Technology Columnist

In my February News Analysis column, entitled “Did Cable Miss the Boat with OCAP?” I admittedly might have been a little overly harsh “The cable operators are not sitting still waiting for the Telco-TV guys to on the cable industry. In examining the OpenCable Application come in with a Quadruple Play that Platform (OCAP), I concluded that the cable industry might have includes the cell phone as a delivery been a bit short-sighted in adopting OCAP because voice signaling platform. Cable operators are moving and QoS still relied on a separate platform. proactively to make sure they can defend their incumbent position and, so Mea Culpa! In April, CableLabs, the at the backbone level to control signal- far, they are doing pretty good,” industry R&D consortium, released its ing between softswitches. Kaufhold explained. newest specifications outlining (finally) “That was a step toward the richer The In-Stat analyst may be right. At how to incorporate the now widely services that we always envisioned for last check, only a small handful of accepted Session Initiation Protocol the platform,” said Ed Miller, Vice neighborhoods are trialing the RBOCs’ (SIP) into clients through its President of Advanced Network Systems IPTV offerings. Plus, as Cablevision PacketCable/DOCSIS interface stan- at CableLabs. “For the initial release, we implies from the repeated rhetoric of its dards for interoperability. The new specs decided to go forth with MGCP, which key executives, cable MSOs aren’t likely also help align the cable industry with was more mature at the time.” to share their capacity-rich coax wiring the IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) The new specifications — collectively that they own to the homes for RBOCs architecture that mobile operators, carri- known as PacketCable 2.0 — define, in to complete the last mile of their Fiber- ers, and service providers are using as detail, the interface requirements needed to-the-Neighborhood (FTTN) strategies. the basis of their Next-Generation for equipment manufacturers to develop “With the RBOCs in less than one Networks (NGNs). interoperable products over the next few million homes marketing video and “This is big news. It’s not something years. Now, in accordance with IMS DSL rolled out to only 85 percent of we haven’t anticipated but it’s still big specs found in 3GPP Release 5 and 6, if their footprints, cable will continue to news because they are working to stan- a user registers through a SIP client, for have the clear Triple Play advantage for dardize on the Session Initiation example, the SIP registration request is some time,” explained Doug Protocol,” explained Gerry Kaufhold, processed exactly how it would on a Mitchelson, analyst at Deutsche Bank. principal analyst for In-Stat’s wireless network: authenticated through And Sprint’s much publicized joint Converging Markets and Technologies the Serving Call Server Control venture with Comcast, Time Warner Information Research Service. Function (S-CSCF) and linked in with Cable, Cox and Advanced/Newhouse Technically, CableLabs incorporated the Home Subscriber Server (HSS) net- Communications isn’t the only conver- the Internet Engineering Task Force’s work elements. gence game around anymore. Last (IETF) SIP into the PacketCable spec Given that multi-service operators month, NTL consolidated the U.K. already with the release of version 1.5 (MSOs) are in a heated race with cable market by merging with Telewest back in 2004. But at that time, regional Bell operating companies Global and then completed the last leg CableLabs’ engineers determined its (RBOCs) to bundle services into a of a Quadruple Play when it reached an Network-based Call Signaling (NCS) Quadruple Play offering, analysts believe agreement to acquire Sir Richard form of the Media Gateway Control the cable industry is shrewdly planning Branson’s Virgin Mobile Holdings. Protocol (MGCP) served embedded for the day when voice, video, and data “So I think this new PacketCable clients better and only incorporated SIP can be integrated with wireless offerings. specification certainly helps set the stage

20 INTERNET TELEPHONY® May 2006 Subscribe FREE online at http://www.itmag.com Go To Table of Contents | Go To Ad Index for the cable operators to expand as as the development environment, but if “IMS only contemplates the cellular voice communications operators and an ISV is shopping around his/her wares handset. We’re looking for a much also as mobile service operators,” as turnkey solutions, that’s a different broader framework in which we can Kaufhold explained. story, according to Eric Rosenfeld, plug in different kinds of clients. IMS “In the U.S. market, they’ve looked Director of the PacketCable doesn’t have a solution on how to tra- more towards having an open standard Architecture at CableLabs. verse residential gateways,” Rosenfeld so that all competitors can have a level “If you’re looking at app servers, I explained. playing field. So the PacketCable speci- think the idea was to minimize that. We Despite CableLabs’ enhancements fication certainly opens up the possi- wanted to allow the same applications though, officials claim that their goal bility that a cable operator can become to be plugged into the PacketCable plat- was to still create an interface that your complete telecommunications serv- form. If you look at clients, it’s going to allowed for an access-agnostic network. ices provider... not just giving you voice, be a little bit more work,” Rosenfeld “I wouldn’t say there’s any one slant video, and data in your home. but fol- told INTERNET TELEPHONY. from any one vendor,” the CableLabs lowing you and your communications That’s because CableLabs’ engineers official said. “We didn’t go off and do needs throughout your day on your cell didn’t stop with only the specifications anything proprietary that favors one phone and other mobile devices that outlined by 3GPP. It also added some product over another.” IT will emerge.” semi-proprietary guidelines to manage So, how much do existing independ- elements that are inherent in the cable Robert Liu is Executive Editor at TMCnet. ent software vendors (ISVs) need to cus- high-speed data network, such as Previously, he was Executive Editor at Jupitermedia and has also written for CNN, tomize their IMS wares to port applica- Quality of Service, security configura- A&E, Dow Jones, and Bloomberg. For more tions onto the cable platform? Not tions, provisioning, accounting and articles, please visit Robert Liu’s columnist much, if an application server was used NAT/firewall traversal. page on http://www.tmcnet.com. page 24 page 38

Sansay & Stealth Free VoIP from PSTN Nero Doesn’t Want to Upset iPod’s Apple Cart Westell Announces TriLink IMS Gateway Is Your Network VoIP-Ready? Empirix Enhances Hammer VoIP Monitoring Iperia’s Enterprise-Class Application Server XO Interactive Deploys Pactolus RapidFLEX Vertical, Quintum Connect to IP-PBX and PSTN Alcatel Intros 7710 Service Router AcceleNet 3.0s Enterprise WAN Grand Slam Ditech Integrates New VQM Solution Microsoft updates corporate e-mail protection Nortel Tunes in to IPTV Avaya Compliant Compass Guides Expand Networks Veraz’s New ControlSwitch Eases Migration Aculab Releases Upgraded Prosody S CLECs Deploy Tekelec’s VoIP Services page 30 Voice Quality Testing Goes Mobile Spirent and Lumenare’s Integrated Test Solution AT&T Inks Contract with Advanced Healthcare NTELOS Readies for IPTV Service with Skystream page 46 Microsoft Clinches IPTV Deal with Deutsche Telekom North State Adopts CommuniGate Pro Yahoo Delivers Phone In, Phone Out Mitel Extends IP Interoperability with SIP Support Level3 Completes Progress Acquisition Eicon’a SIP Interface for Vocalocity Voice Browser New Global Telecom Launches IPower MSC Service Verizon Enhances Wholesale SIP Gateway Product 8 Million VoIP Calls Per Day Emergent Network Solutions Announces ENTICE 2.4 page 48 CallTower IP Integrates Cisco Solution Aspect Software Enhances the Patient Experience page 34 Metaphor Answers SMB’s Call Global Crossing Tapped by Mexicana Telsima Launches Complete WiMAX Solution TeleTech Boosts on Demand Solution Metalink Delivers HDTV via WiFi VoiceLog’s Hosted/ASP Call Recording Solution Meru Networks Compatible with Blackberry WLAN Device page 52 WifiTastic Converts Wireless Networks Into mPhase Signs Distribution Agreement with LEA Public WiFi Covad behind Bandwidth.com/CompUSA VoIP Netrake and Kineto Wireless Now UMA-Interoperable Brightpoint to Distribute Simply Phones with ECCB Coming Soon: EV-DO VoIP IBM and 3Com to Deliver IP Telephony Suite for VoX Communications’ New VoIP Wholesale Customers BCE Elix to Distribute Mercom Call Center Call Products Vodavi, Covad Provide VoIP Phones Very Small Market

22 INTERNET TELEPHONY® May 2006 Subscribe FREE online at http://www.itmag.com Go To Table of Contents | Go To Ad Index 1.888.422.3500 www.siptalkpro.com

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24 INTERNET TELEPHONY® May 2006 Subscribe FREE online at http://www.itmag.com Go To Table of Contents | Go To Ad Index Internet Telephony Ad 2/10/06 3:46 PM Page 1

Don’t Make a Million Dollar Voice Messaging Mistake

How much money can you expect to spend if you change to a new If you’re considering a messaging product from your PBX vendor, family of messaging systems? Our customers tell us that it’s twice as is their experience limited to just integrating their own messaging expensive to purchase a new messaging system versus upgrading their system to their own phone system? What if you need to integrate current system! with other PBX’s, e-mail or Presence servers, Speech Recognition, IVR or other Voice Messaging platforms? Why? As a messaging focused systems integrator, we can handle all of • There is a huge time and expense commitment in training new your future needs. users, re-recording greetings and auto attendants and rebuilding distribution lists. Does your system have the latest design considerations for up- • Users resist learning new user interfaces, and get little help from time and high security requirements? confused employees and overwhelmed help desks. Our systems are built for maximum reliability and up-time. From • Database conversions can be more complicated than anticipated. the operating system to the CPU and power supplies, we are focused on insuring your up-time. At CommuniTech Services, we’ve specialized in providing and supporting voice messaging systems since 1983. We have the Can your vendor help devise marketing programs to help you get answers that solve your most critical concerns, including these: your user communities to use your services and to help you sell your services? Have you made sure that that the critical features you use now We’ll help you sell your users on the services you provide are available on your new system? New “state-of-the-art” systems often lack the features you expect. What other hidden costs of ownership are there? Some don’t even offer automated attendant. Many vendors are inexperienced in sizing systems which leads to spending more than is necessary. We’ll help you make the right Does your vendor know both the voice messaging applications decision the first time. Needs change – an expert in messaging can and the capabilities of the new technology and can bridge the ensure that your messaging platform can adapt and thrive in an old with the new? ever changing, complex environment. We know messaging intimately in both the TDM and IP worlds along with Find Me, Follow Me, Unified Messaging, IVR, and Speech CommuniTech Services can help you avoid potentially costly Recognition and other productivity enhancers. Don’t pay for your mistakes with your messaging systems needs. For more vendor’s learning curve. information, call us at 847.981.1200 extension 480. Does your vendor know how to proactively monitor and optimize systems that have heavy demand, high up-time requirements? This is part of our standard support service. Don’t wait for your CS system to malfunction…we’ll make sure it never does. C OMMUNIT ECH S ERVICES, INC. www.communitechservices.com Westell Announces TriLink IMS Gateway By Laura Stotler Westell Technologies, Inc. (news - alert) has announced the TriLink IMS gateway, enabling delivery of converged wireline-wireless IMS services and applications. The new gateway is part of an unnamed network operator’s plans to offer access to personalized IMS-based services and applications at any time, from anywhere The TriLink gateway offers a fixed mobile convergence solution to enable seamless roaming between legacy POTS and wireless networks when using a dual-mode mobile/WiFi phone. It features four ring patterns depending on the number dialed, and offers consistent, uninterrupted quality through support of multiple SSIDs. Advanced power management capabilities and quality of service are offered in accordance with the 802.11e standard. The gateway features two integrated SIP VoIP access ports with POTS fallback for power loss, minimizing the need for additional hardware and battery backup. It also features an 802.11g access point for 54 Mbps wireless networking and a four-port Ethernet switch for wired networking. Remote device management is featured through the TR-069 standard. http://www.westell.com

Iperia Introduces Enterprise-Class IperiaVX Application Server Iperia, Inc. (news - alert) announced the delivery of IperiaVX, a revolutionary enterprise-class voice-enabled application server specifically designed to meet the evolving business requirements of organizations worldwide. IperiaVX enables enterprises to easily integrate new and existing communications applications within a single voice-enabled framework. The platform has standard components that include voice messaging, auto-attendant, conferencing, fax messaging and unified communications via Microsoft Outlook, Lotus Notes or any other message and calendar application. In addition to these standard components, IperiaVX offers a development platform allowing enterprises to tightly integrate their unified communication functionality into their service orientated architecture (SOA) and portal development. Iperia’s development platform leverages JSR 168 and JSR 180 standards. With IperiaVX, an enterprise’s entire communications infrastructure is effectively voice/video-enabled with unified communications such as voicemail, e-mail, fax messaging, instant messaging, video and conferencing on a single platform. Information workers are able to make and receive phone calls from the convenience of any personal device. In addition, the platform enables workers to send text messages to voicemail boxes, receive fax transmissions in their e-mail boxes and store voice messages and faxes in Outlook – effectively managing all of their communications from a single box for greater productivity and efficiency. http://www.iperia.com

26 INTERNET TELEPHONY® May 2006 Subscribe FREE online at http://www.itmag.com Go To Table of Contents | Go To Ad Index V1.73068_BCS_PP060221_A 3/7/06 2:58 PM Page 1

Convergence, meet the new guy.

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Project#: STA-1086 File Name: BCS_PP060221_A Approval Job #: PP060221 Fonts: Helvetica Neue Client: Samsung Software: Quark 5, Adobe CS C.D.: ______Product: BCS T.S.: Amy Friend 1.201.229.6038 A.D.:______Description: BCS A.D.: Noelle DeCoro 1.201.229.6083 C.W.: ______Date: 3.2.06 C.W.: client supplied A.E.: ______Headline: Convergence, meet the new guy. C.D.: Tom McManus 1.201.229.6060 Pub.: Internet Telephony, Communications News, P.A.: Noelle DeCoro 1.201.229.6083 P.A.: ______Phone +, CIO P.M.: Dan Eigen 1.201.229.6072 PRF:______Space Description: FP4C Mag A.E.: Michael McClure 1.972.761.7820 Size: Trim: 8”x 10.75” 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Safety: 7”x 10” SCHAWK#73068-001-00 Vertical and Quintum Connect Customers to IP-PBX and PSTN Devices By Johanne Torres IP-based phone systems provider Vertical Communications Inc. (news - alert) announced it certified the Quintum (news - alert) SIP Tenor VoIP MultiPath switches and gateways for use with Vertical TeleVantage, the company’s IP-PBX system. The move will allow the TeleVantage and the Quintum switches and gateways to provide customers with dual communications features and functions, combined with the call routing and processing capabilities of TeleVantage. With the Vertical/Quintum combo, customers will also be able to connect to Public Switched Telephone Networks (PSTN) without having to immediately upgrade to an all-IP environment. TeleVantage’s software-based IP-PBX provides expanded contact center capabilities including “true skills-based” routing and the ability to record and archive calls. The company’s phone system allows customers to run TeleVantage apps from their corporate infrastructure to branch offices without having to invest in additional telephony equipment deployment. TeleVantage, together with the Quintum Tenor, will provide “intelligent connectivity” for both single site installations and branch offices. For single site installations, customers will receive connectivity for IP endpoints, as well as traditional analog systems and PSTNs, with “dynamic call routing.” The gateway can also be used for supporting legacy analog devices including faxes, phones and paging systems, as well as for supporting inbound and outbound PSTN calls. Both single site and branch installations receive emergency services support via the PSTN. http://www.vertical.com http://www.quintum.com

AcceleNet 3.0s Enterprise WAN Grand Slam Microsoft updates, renames corporate By Erik Linask e-mail protection service CIOs and IT managers are discovering that adding WAN Microsoft Corp. (quote - news - alert) is releasing new bandwidth does not solve all of the performance issues in many versions of its software packages for safeguarding and archiv- mission-critical applications and that many are the result of net- ing e-mails and other corporate messages. work latency. In addition, they are challenged by their users’ Microsoft Exchange Hosted Services, which was known as growing demand for application acceleration in branch offices, FrontBridge Technologies before Microsoft acquired that com- home offices, and while mobile. AcceleNet now has the solution. pany, comprises four products that can help companies do Intelligent Compression Technologies, Inc. (ICT) (news - things like minimize spam and viruses and archive messages alert) has released its AcceleNet 3.0 Enterprise. The latest itera- for legal and regulatory requirements. tion of the firm’s acceleration software targets the Enterprise The products are offered as a service over the Internet, space with new WAN and remote access functionality, which the rather than as software that companies have to install. Web- firm says is set to “redefine the WAN.” based offerings are growing in popularity because they can be AcceleNet 3.0 provides branch offices, telecommuters, and cheaper and easier for customers to deploy and less cumber- mobile users with a comprehensive feature set and scaleable some for software makers to update. Microsoft, which makes solution for network optimization and application acceleration. most of its money from desktop-bound software like Where other boxed solutions strike out because they are Windows and Office, is trying to make inroads into that field. logistically insufficient, lack scalability or flexibility, and tend to Redmond-based Microsoft says the products, which will be be cost prohibitive, AcceleNet new Grand Slam of features sold directly to businesses, are meant to complement other addresses the range of access requirements demanded by security safeguards that companies have on their premises. today’s relentless mobile users. http://www.microsoft.com http://www.ictcompress.com

28 INTERNET TELEPHONY® May 2006 Subscribe FREE online at http://www.itmag.com Go To Table of Contents | Go To Ad Index Avaya Compliant Compass Guides Expand Networks By Erik Linask Expand Networks, (news - alert) a leading provider of application acceleration solutions over the WAN, announced that its Expand Compass platform is now “Avaya compliant” — meaning that it is compliant with key Internet protocol (IP) telephony solutions from Avaya. (news - alert) The Expand Compass application acceleration platform integrates multiple technologies and maps them to the corresponding business mandates. A key initiative is Expand’s voice and data convergence capability, along with its QoS feature, which can detect and prioritize IP telephony traffic to ensure it receives the quality of transport required for superior call performance — a feature whose effectiveness can be maximized by matching it with Expand’s WAN compression capabilities. WAN compression increases the available bandwidth for all applications. Avaya-compliancy ensure’s Expand’s customers that their Avaya VoIP traffic will have the dedicated bandwidth needed for high-quality calls. http://www.expand.com, http://www.avaya.com AT&T Inks Voice and Data Contract with Advanced Healthcare By Johanne Torres AT&T Inc. (quote - news - alert) announced that Advanced Healthcare, a physician- led, multi-specialty clinic group in southeastern Wisconsin awarded the telecom giant with a new optical and data-networking services contract. The new, five-year contract calls for AT&T to expand Advanced Healthcare’s bandwidth through a deployment of a fully-redundant Synchronous Optical Network (SONET) ring to six locations throughout the state. With the additional bandwidth, Advanced Healthcare will be able to consolidate large amounts of voice, data, and video traffic from its various locations to a single, fail-safe platform. The new services will also support an X-ray Picture Archiving and Communication Please tell System (PACS), which can store, display and transmit digital medical images across Advanced Healthcare’s network. Additionally, because of its increased capabilities, the vendors Advanced Healthcare will have the capacity to set up a disaster recovery site that mir- rors the current data center. AT&T is currently the primary provider of voice and data you saw it in services to Advanced Healthcare. http://www.att.com INTERNET TELEPHONY® Magazine www.itmag.com

NTELOS Readies for IPTV Service with Skystream By Erik Linask Telecom carriers and service providers are constantly looking to improve their service offerings to retain and attract customers. Today, a large part of that is offering converged video and data services. But to do this, they must have a cost-effective migration plan for moving their networks to an IP-based architecture and shortening their time to market. That means they must find a suitable technology partner. NTELOS Inc., (news - alert) a Waynesboro, VA-based communications provider, has found its partner — it has selected SkyStream as its video head end partner for a new IPTV service over Fiber-to-the- Premise (FTTP) for its Virginia customer base. Skystream (news - alert) has expertise in video and data content delivery infrastructure and will help NTELOS add new capabilities to its network to reliably deliver additional services and content. NTELOS has built a “super video head end” center, where it has deployed the SkyStream Mediaplex-20 video head end. NTELOS is distributing the MPEG-2 feed over a 10-Gigabit Metro Ethernet ring to several regional offices and will deploy the SkyStream iPlex edge video head end system for additional aggregation and distribution. NTELOS will be able to offer local channels, advertising and other programming from these regional centers. http://www.ntelos.com http://www.skystream.com

30 INTERNET TELEPHONY® May 2006 Subscribe FREE online at http://www.itmag.com Go To Table of Contents | Go To Ad Index Project3 3/15/2006 11:19 AM Page 3 Microsoft Clinches IPTV Deal with Deutsche Telekom By Niladri Sekhar Nath Deutsche Telekom (news - alert) has decided to use Microsoft’s (quote - news - alert) software to deliver television Yahoo Delivers Phone In, Phone Out and video-on-demand over its improved Internet Protocol net- By Cindy Waxer work starting this summer. In an effort to take on the head-to-head challenges of “We forecast 1 million customers by the end of 2007. The VoIP to the instant messaging market, Yahoo! Inc. (news - main feature of the new network will be television and video alert) has introduced a new public beta of its instant mes- services,” said Deutsche Telekom spokesman Mark saging suite, Yahoo! Messenger with Voice, with enhanced Nierwetberg. PC-based calling capabilities in the United States. Deutsche Telekom has plans to upgrade subscribers in 10 Special features include Phone Out, which allows con- large German cities to VDSL (supercharged version of ADSL sumers in the to make low-cost VoIP calls using their PC to offering data speeds up to 50 Megabits per second) or very call traditional or mobile phones in more than 180 coun- fast digital subscriber lines. The company aims to link a fur- tries. Additionally, U.S. consumers can receive calls on their ther 40 cities by the end of 2007, bringing the total investment PC from traditional and mobile phones for $2.99 a month to €3 billion (approx $3.63 billion). Deutsche Telekom hopes or $29.90 a year with the Phone In feature. Phone In gives to deliver several high definition television programs simulta- people a virtual presence in their city of choice, and wher- neously to the home. ever they travel, their phone number will follow them. http://www.microsoft.com The new PC-based calling features were initially intro- http://www.telekom3.de duced to international users in December 2005, and will continue to be rolled out in additional localized versions. The enhanced Yahoo! Messenger with Voice features will also be introduced into Yahoo!’s co-branded Internet access services, including AT&T Yahoo! High Speed Internet, in the coming months. http://www.yahoo.com

Level3 Completes Progress Acquisition By Johanne Torres Level3 Communications Inc. (news - alert) announced that it completed its acquisition of all of the membership interests of St. Petersburg, Fla.-based Progress Telecom LLC, a regional wholesale network services company. Level3 began acquisition procedures of the telecom back in January. Progress Telecom was jointly owned by Progress Energy Inc. and Odyssey Telecorp Inc. Progress Telecom’s (news - alert) network spans 9,000 miles, includes 29 metro networks and connects to international cable landings in South Florida and 31 mobile switching centers in the southeast. The company serves approximately 200 customers. Level3 has been expanding its voice offering through these kinds of acquisitions during 2006. With these acquisitions, Level3 can now deliver a suite of both traditional and IP-based services. The company’s expanded portfolio can also enable providers in the Time Division Multiplex (TDM) environment migrate to an IP platform. http://www.level3.com http://www.progresstelecom.com

32 INTERNET TELEPHONY® May 2006 Subscribe FREE online at http://www.itmag.com Go To Table of Contents | Go To Ad Index New Global Telecom Launches IPower MSC Service By Mae Kowalke Telephony solutions provider New Global Telecom (NGT) (news - alert) announced the launch of its new IPower session border control leasing service. The service gives carriers exclusive access to license and support for a NexTone Multiprococol Session Controller (MSC). The IPower service will be sold under NGT’s General Telecom brand, complementing the company’s established IPartition hosted softswitch services. IPower provides CDR reporting, enhanced call rating, CDR-based alarming and automated least cost routing capabilities, among other features. Additionally, service providers using IPower rental services will have access to stand-alone MSC (collocated at NGT’s facilities), bandwidth to handle higher traffic volumes, maintenance support, and 24/7 monitoring. http://www.ngt.com

8 Million VoIP Calls Per Day By Erik Linask Voice over IP is a growing industry, of that there is no question. The question is how quickly is it growing, and how long will the trend continue. For VoIP, Inc., (news - alert) a provider of VoIP solutions for service providers, resellers, and consumers, the answers are very rapidly and forever, hopefully. Indeed, the company continues to experience consistent, solid growth, securing its position among the leading VoIP providers in the United States. Emergent Network Solutions Announces ENTICE 2.4 In May 2004, VoIP, Inc.’s network minutes were Emergent Network Solutions, Inc. (news - alert) announced approximately 100,000/month. They jumped to more than ENTICE 2.4, a significant new release of its VoIP call control plat- 250,000,000/month after the company acquired Volo form. Additions and upgrades in Version 2.4 include support for Communications and the VoiceOne network in June 2005, SOAP based Web services, a new traffic monitoring and report- both of which were developed and founded by Lewis. In ing module, and dynamic least-cost routing. As part of November 2005, after VoIP, Inc. acquired WQN, an inter- Emergent’s continued progression towards IMS compliance, national pre-paid phone card company, the company’s ENTICE has been enhanced with advanced mobility features for 2005 annual usage surged to 3.6 billion. roaming SIP endpoints and new security features enabled by the “We are passing our competitors with an average of addition of p-header support. over 8 million calls inbound/outbound daily. We have ENTICE (Emergent Network Telecommunications Infrastructure worked hard to add customers, and we have signed up an Control Environment) is the core operating system that drives incredible number of high-profile ones,” VoIP, Inc.’s the Emergent VoIP product line. Suitable for either existing or President Mike Adler said. greenfield environments, ENTICE provides complete control serv- VoiceOne provides a hearty selection of world-class ices and a software foundation to layer new services. ENTICE services to carriers and service providers, including the products include the ENTICE Softswitch, ENTICE Session VoiceOne Network, a seamless nationwide IP network, Controller, and various gateways products and service offerings. which includes 22 points of presence in the U.S. and ENTICE 2.4’s improvements provide greater flexibility and more than 5,000 local access points, allowing it to reach value to Emergent’s entire product line with particular advantages some 90% of the U.S. population. to the E-REV solution, a turnkey VoIP solution for ISPs, whole- http://www.voipinc.com sale carriers and CLECs. http://www.emergent-netsolutions.com

Subscribe FREE online at http://www.itmag.com INTERNET TELEPHONY® May 2006 33 Go To Table of Contents | Go To Ad Index Telsima Launches Complete WiMAX Solution By Erik Linask Cellular carriers and WiFi solution providers have had a strong run in recent times. But both consumers and business customers want more — they want the range of cellular AND the speed of broadband. Which is precisely what WiMAX is out to deliver. Santa Clara, California-headquartered Telsima Corporation (news - alert) has launched StarMAX, its carrier-grade WiMAX solution for WBA. The product family comprises a complete suite of WiMAX solutions, including base stations, subscriber stations, GUI-based management system, and a provisioning and mobility manager. Telsima sees WiMAX as the ideal last mile solution for broadband connectivity and will leverage the benefits of standardization, innovative design, and large market size to market its latest product set to a group of operators that requires standards-based, easily and quickly deployable, broadband service for their enterprise and/or residential customers. http://www.telsima.com

Metalink Delivers HDTV via WiFi Metalink, (news - alert) a provider of high performance wireless and wireline broadband communication silicon solutions, announced that it has concluded a series of live demonstrations of its WLANPlus chipset, a technology based on the emerging 802.11n standard, with unique capabilities for wireless multimedia distribution. For the first time, advanced Wi-Fi technology was used to demonstrate the delivery of multiple simultaneous high-definition television (HDTV) streams anywhere in the home, with full quality of service (QoS) guarantees. Metalink’s WLANPlus family consists of the company’s MtW8170 baseband device and the MtW8150 radio frequency integrated circuit (RFIC). WLANPlus has been developed in line with draft specifications for the future 802.11n high-speed Wi-Fi standard, which were unanimously approved by the 802.11n Task Group (TGn) in January 2006. Metalink continues to play a pivotal role in the standards finalization process, and is at the forefront of efforts to optimize 802.11n technology for demanding wireless video entertainment applications in such consumer electronics products as digital video recorders (DVRs), set-top boxes (STBs), high-definition televisions (HDTVs) and media adapters. http://www.metalinkbb.com

ATTENTION VENDORS! Send your News and Product Releases via e-mail to [email protected]. Whenever possible, please include high-resolution (minimum 300 dpi) color graphics (.BMP, .EPS, .TIF, or .JPG).

34 INTERNET TELEPHONY® May 2006 Subscribe FREE online at http://www.itmag.com Go To Table of Contents | Go To Ad Index Meru Networks Now Compatible with Blackberry WLAN Device By Erik Linask Meru Networks, (news - alert) which provides wireless VoIP infrastructure worldwide, has announced a comprehensive solution for on-premise wireless voice and data applications with support for the BlackBerry WLAN solution from Research in Motion (RIM). (news - alert) Meru has certified interoperability of the Research in Motion’s BlackBerry 7270 handheld with Meru’s WLAN System. BlackBerry’s WLAN solution includes the BlackBerry 7270 handheld, which connects to a BlackBerry Enterprise Server to enable secure wireless access to email, instant messaging (IM), organizer, Internet, and other corporate applications. It also allows wireless VoIP calls through enterprise telephony systems, such as IP-PBXs, via the industry-standard SIP. Enterprise customers can now use the BlackBerry WLAN solution to access a reliable, scalable enterprise WiFi network for high-performance, on-premise wireless voice and data applications. Unlike other WLAN systems, where APs (access points) work independently and, therefore, need to be individually configured to deliver adjacent, non-overlapping coverage, Meru’s WLAN System uses a coordinated, cellular architecture in which all APs work in tandem. Thus, this solution provides a seamless blanketing with transparent scalability and zero handoff times between APs. It also affords QoS assurance to each WLAN user — now including users with the BlackBerry 7270 device. Meru’s bi-directional QoS technology has is designed to identify SIP-based traffic and to provide it priority over other traffic, to assure dial-tone quality wireless VoIP. http://www.merunetworks.com http://www.rim.com

WifiTastic Converts Wireless Networks Into Public WiFi Hotspots WifiTastic, LLC. (news - alert) introduced its public BETA program, which enables broadband subscribers to create a revenue-generating hotspot providing high-speed, wireless Internet access to users of WiFi-ready laptops, PCs, Macs and PDAs. By setting up a commercial hotspot, owners can earn money by charging people in the vicinity of their wireless router to connect for a fixed hourly, daily or monthly fee. While the company provides a suggested pricing model, WifiTastic owners can determine their own rates. Users can connect to the router, pay by credit card, and then access the Internet. WifiTastic handles the billing and returns 60% of the proceeds directly to the hotspot owner. Currently, the service is compatible with the Linksys (news - alert) WRT54G router. Users can simply purchase a pre-configured router or update their existing Linksys router by downloading and installing a free firmware update from WifiTastic. http://www.wifitastic.com http://www.linksys.com

Subscribe FREE online at http://www.itmag.com INTERNET TELEPHONY® May 2006 35 Go To Table of Contents | Go To Ad Index Netrake and Kineto Wireless Now UMA-Interoperable By Johanne Torres Netrake (news - alert) and Kineto Wireless (news - alert) announced that they completed all interoperability testing procedures to support currently installed UMA systems. According to the companies, Netrake’s nCite Security Gateway and Kineto’s IP-based UMA Network Controller (IP-UNC) are currently deployed in commercial trials for UMA-based mobile/WiFi convergence. Netrake’s nCite Security Gateway bundles voice and multimedia in encrypted IP tunnels for wireless usage over the public Internet. The system uses IPSec encryption and estab- lishes multiple media and signaling security associations without adding network latency. The company’s Secure Edge Architecture offers Denial of Service (DoS) attack prevention, firewalls, intrusion detection services, IMSI filtering, blacklisting, impersonation detection, spoof prevention, dynamic virtual routing, and Network Address Translation (NAT). Kineto’s mobile/WiFi convergence system offers the Kineto IP-UNC, a carrier-class network component that integrates with a service provider’s existing voice and packet switching systems. The technology uses standard interfaces to extend higher-performance mobile services over IP access networks and WLANs. The company’s IP-UNC manages and secures subscriber’s access to mobile, voice, data, and IMS services from WLAN locations and facilitates automatic, roaming and handover between licensed radio access networks and WLANs. http://www.netrake.com http://www.kinetowireless.com

Coming Soon: EV-DO VoIP By Erik Linask Nortel (quote - news - alert) and Sierra Wireless (news - alert) have achieved a significant technology milestone needed to power wireless services such as push-to-talk, push-to-video, VoIP, and interactive gaming at much faster speeds than what is currently available. The two companies achieved the industry’s first over the air test calls using EV-DO Revision A wireless technology and pre-commercial wireless data devices. The successful tests confirm the commercial viability of EV-DO Revision A for powering next-generation broadband wireless services. Operators will be able to prioritize different users and applications, enabling tiered services and multiple pricing options. Operators also can make additional security enhancements by using authentication mechanisms that can identify users and give specific access rights based on the user’s profile. EV-DO Revision A technology will offer significant performance improvements to both the uplink and the downlink speeds compared to current EV-DO (Release 0) networks. EV-DO Revision A enables peak data download rates of up to 3.1 Mbps and upload rates up to 1.8 Mbps. http://www.nortel.com http://www.sierrawireless.com

36 INTERNET TELEPHONY® May 2006 Subscribe FREE online at http://www.itmag.com Go To Table of Contents | Go To Ad Index Exclusive Target Distributing Promotion: Buy any 3Com NBX System with 10 3Com phones and receive a Free Baseline Switch 2226 Plus! From now through June 2, 2006 buy any 3Com® NBX® System with 10 3Com phones and Target Distributing will soft bundle a Free Baseline Switch 2226 Plus (3C16475BS). The 3Com V3000 (3C10600A) or V5000 (3C10201) systems qualify for this offer.

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Copyright © 2006 3Com Corporation. All rights reserved. 3Com and the 3Com logo are registered trademarks of 3Com Corporation. 3Com reserves the right to alter, amend or cancel this offer at any time without notice. nbx systems ad_td 03/06 Nero Doesn’t Want to Upset iPod’s Apple Cart By Erik Linask Digital media technology developer Nero (news - alert) has announced its latest update to Nero 7. The most recent Web update includes new features for Nero Digital, which now includes MPEG- 4/ASP and H.264/AVC capabilities as well as plug-and-play video file transfer from PC to a 5th generation iPod. What the integration of iPod-compatible video resolutions of 320 x 240 MPEG-4/AVC and 480 x 480 MPEG-4/ASP means for iPod users is that they can now use applications like Nero Recode and Nero Vision for quick and easy portable content creation. MPEG-4 is rapidly becoming the audio/video standard format for mobile, portable, broadcast and streaming projects as well as for the next generation of high definition video content. Nero Digital’s superior MPEG-4 AAC audio and AVC video format is at the forefront of modern codec technology. http://www.nero.com

Is Your Network VoIP-Ready? By Erik Linask Successful VoIP deployments depend on fast and effective network assessment, monitoring, and troubleshooting. For those people that have had negative VoIP experiences, and for anyone that is considering a VoIP deployment, Andover, MA-based Viola Networks has a solution. In fact, Viola (news - alert) has unveiled the latest release of its NetAlly comprehensive VoIP management solution. NetAlly Lifecycle Manager is a solution suite that combines several stand-alone products that Viola has marketed individually under the NetAlly brand in the past. The NetAlly name is not new, but the notion of a completely unified lifecycle management system is. Viola’s NetAlly Lifecycle Manager is a fully integrated solution for pre-deployment readiness assessment — to ensure that your network is “ready for voice traffic and happy coexistence with data application traffic.” During deployment, Viola helps facilitate successful roll-out and, post-deployment, the product supports the network environment with monitoring, troubleshooting, reporting, capacity planning, and network optimization. http://www.viola.com

38 INTERNET TELEPHONY® May 2006 Subscribe FREE online at http://www.itmag.com Go To Table of Contents | Go To Ad Index ATTENTION VENDORS! Send your News and Product Releases via e-mail to [email protected]. Whenever possible, please include high-resolution (minimum Empirix Enhances Hammer XMS 300 dpi) color graphics (.BMP, .EPS, .TIF, or .JPG). VoIP Monitoring System Empirix Inc., (news - alert) which helps organizations adopt complex communications solutions with confidence, announced the latest release of its carrier-class VoIP monitoring solution, Hammer XMS 1.5. Hammer XMS now features a simpli- fied user interface specifically designed for first-level support representatives, enabling rapid problem identification and more efficient escalation; and enhanced customer reporting that carriers can use to give their service provider customers web-based access to reports on their own service metrics. Hammer XMS 1.5 also adds support for H.248, SIP-T, SIGTRAN and ETSI ISUP protocols — requirements of the world’s top service providers for VoIP service monitoring. http://www.empirix.com

XO Interactive Deploys Pactolus RapidFLEX Media Server By Mae Kowalke Pactolus Communications, (news - alert) developer of SIP-based IP voice services, announced that its RapidFLEX Media Server with VoiceXML interface is being deployed by XO Interactive. XO Interactive, a subsidiary of XO Communications, (news - alert) provides hosted interactive voice response (IVR) services. The company will use Pactolus’ media server to support seamless integration of advanced technologies and rich customer content, ensuring service reliability both on an ongoing basis and during peak periods of demand. Pactolus’ SIPware Calling Card application also previously was deployed by XO Interactive, on behalf of a major telecommunications service provider that distributes cards in retail outlets throughout North America. http://www.xo.com http://www.pactolus.com

Subscribe FREE online at http://www.itmag.com Alcatel Intros 7710 Service Router By Johanne Torres French technology provider Alcatel (news - alert) introduced its 7710 Service Router, the company’s compact, optimized service routing platform with a throughput of 12 Gb/s. The device’s compact form factor, variety of lower-speed interfaces, and purpose-built high availability, would seem like a great option for mobile operators and service providers with smaller points of presence (POPs) and emerging markets. The 7710 SR incorporates all features of the Alcatel 7750 Service Router portfolio, including the high availability and Quality of Service (QoS). The addition of the 7710 SR will enable IP network providers to support voice, video and data services in an always- on, highly resilient manner. http://www.alcatel.com

Ditech Integrates New Voice Quality Management Solution By Stefania Viscusi Ditech Communications Corporation, (news - alert) provider of voice processing and border service solutions, announced it will integrate Voice Quality Management (VQM) into its Packet Voice Processor. The addition will provide enhanced border services for providers. VQM has the capability of monitoring calls on an individual, real-time basis as well as performing basic codec transcoding and voice quality enhancement functions at the same time. VQM uses SIP-based signaling and monitors voice quality for packet delays, loss and jitters — even speech faults like background noise, hybrid and acoustic echo. With VQM service providers can further improve their call quality and better perfect their networks. http://www.ditechcom.com

Nortel Tunes in to IPTV By Cindy Waxer Only days after reaching an agreement on insurance payments in two class-action law- suits, Nortel (news - alert) is leveraging its SIP-based services to develop new IPTV functionality that promises to change the way people use their TVs for both entertainment and communications. At its IPTV lab in Ottawa, Nortel is demonstrating the delivery of IPTV services over its IMS infrastructure, the first step for enabling telcos to create personalized IPTV services across wireline and wireless networks that helps to provide long-term differentiation from competitive offerings. Demonstrated services include mobile-to-TV picture sharing, on-screen instant messaging and presence, and click-to-call functionality. Nortel is also enhancing its integrated voice and text communications capabilities built using a new jointly developed Application Programming Interface (API) that enables the integration of real-time IPTV services with Minerva’s iTVManager software. Nortel is using this jointly developed interface as a first step to bring together Minerva’s IPTV middleware platform with Nortel’s IMS solution to make content available to users anywhere, anytime, on any device. http://www.nortel.com

40 INTERNET TELEPHONY® May 2006 Subscribe FREE online at http://www.itmag.com Go To Table of Contents | Go To Ad Index Veraz’s New ControlSwitch Eases Migration to IMS By Mae Kowalke Service providers migrating from traditional voice networks to IP multimedia subsystem (IMS) networks now have some help from VoIP solutions provider Veraz Networks. (news - alert) The company announced the launch of its updated ControlSwitch product. ControlSwitch allows providers to make the switch to IMS without sacrificing the infrastructure investments they’ve already made. It uses Service Control Multi-Protocol (SCMP) capabilities to mix and match legacy services (such as toll- free) with new multimedia services (such as messaging). ControlSwitch is also programmable, so providers can adapt it to meet their unique network needs. www.veraznetworks.com

Subscribe FREE online at http://www.itmag.com INTERNET TELEPHONY® May 2006 41 Go To Table of Contents | Go To Ad Index Aculab Releases Upgraded Prosody S By Michelle Pasquerello Aculab (news - alert) released the latest version of its host media processing software, Prosody S. The anticipated upgrade to Aculab’s popular HMP software was specifically designed to minimize the problems that are normally associated with IP telephony, offering developers greater flexibility with a new range of functions. The upgrade of Prosody S is able to run up 360 half duplex channels, 180 full duplex channels, and 300 conference parties in any sub-group combination with all the necessary speech processing functions on the same server as the host application. Mike Matthews, Head of Product Marketing for Aculab, explained that conferencing requirements vary greatly, ranging from just a few people to broadcast style conferences, like a CEO’s end of year bonus announcement. During larger conferences, it becomes important to identify the speaker — which is Prosody S conferencing active speaker detection feature. “The flexibility of the conferencing functions for the application developer sets Prosody S apart from other products,” said Matthews. http://www.aculab.com

CLECs Deploy Tekelec’s VoIP and Broadband-Enabled Services By Johanne Torres Tekelec (news - alert) announced that two competitive local exchange carriers (CLECs), Burlington Telecom and Crocker Telecommunications have deployed the Tekelec 7000 Class 5 Packet Switch and Tekelec 6000 VoIP Application Server to deliver voice, Internet, and video services. The Tekelec 7000 is a softswitch that integrates with IP and time division multiplexing (TDM) network interfaces, enabling a smoother network migration to VoIP. The Tekelec 6000 VoIP Application Server integrates with Tekelec’s switching platforms to enable delivery of voice, data, video and wireless services. The new agreement enabled Burlington Telecom, the new fiber-optic public network operated by the city of Burlington, Vt., to deploy Tekelec’s switching platforms to enable the launch of triple-play broadband Internet, cable TV and voice services early this year for the city’s residents, businesses, and government agencies. Greenfield, Mass.-based Crocker Telecommunications delivers voice and data services, including broadband Internet, ISDN, co-location and Web-based hosting to business and residential customers in western Massachusetts. http://www.tekelec.com

42 INTERNET TELEPHONY® May 2006 Subscribe FREE online at http://www.itmag.com Go To Table of Contents | Go To Ad Index

Advertisement VoIP Security: The Real Story

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© Copyright 2006 NetIQ Corporation. All rights reserved. NetIQ Corporation www.netiq.com Voice Quality Testing Goes Mobile By Erik Linask GL Communications Inc. (news - alert) announced a “drive testing enhancement” to its Wireless Voice Quality Testing (VQT) Solutions. Users of this new product can automatically analyze voice quality of their wireless network as they drive. GL’s Wireless VQT solution provides all the necessary equipment and functionality for management of voice quality testing on wireless networks. The addition of Wireless VQT Drive Testing provides the functionality in a mobile environment. It includes functionality to support call control for most mobile phone manufactures and models, the capability for sending and recording voice over the mobile phone, the ability to analyze the voice and provide VQT measurement results along with VQT analysis results, and, finally, the ability to associate the GPS location coordinates and GPS time stamping with each VQT measurement result — the results of which can be plotted using common GPS mapping software. Up to four mobile phones can be supported simultaneously within a single enclosure, all conveniently controlled from a single laptop running the GL AFT (Automated File Transceiver) software. With an added wireless network connection, all the functions of the solution can the GL Wireless VQT solution, can be remotely controlled and all results transmitted to remote locations — including streaming the audio voice files. http://www.gl.com

Spirent and Lumenare Tag Team Kicks Out Integrated Test Solution By Erik Linask Spirent Communications (news - alert) is teaming with Lumenare Networks (news - alert) to provide a fully integrated test automation solution. This partnership addresses the challenge of testing increasingly complex converged network technologies in the lab and during manufacturing. Spirent is a worldwide provider of integrated performance analysis and service assurance systems for next-generation network technologies. The new solution, which integrates offerings from both firms, can increase testing by five to eight times the rate of manual testing. A major carrier spending $10 million over two years on manual test processes could see CAPEX and OPEX savings in the order of $5 million. The combined solution also allows for repeated testing using fully automated hardware setup and software configuration. Moreover, it increases consistency of results, speeds problem isolation, and helps in ensuring a successful launch. Automation also supports reusability of test procedures through the full life cycle, from development to manufacturing. The combination of lab and test automation to provide a full test lifecycle management solution integrates inventory control, configuration management, scheduling, test planning, execution, and reporting — all enabled for local, distributed, or fully automated remote control. The solution can configure lab and test environments from any location in the world over the Web, and the tests themselves can be automated to run in a 24/7 “lights out” scenario. http://www.lumenare.com http://www.spirentcom.com

44 INTERNET TELEPHONY® May 2006 Subscribe FREE online at http://www.itmag.com Go To Table of Contents | Go To Ad Index

North State Adopts CommuniGate Pro for Next-Gen IMS & VoIP Apps By Erik Linask CommuniGate Systems, (news - alert) a provider of scalable carrier-class Internet Communications solutions, announced that North State Communications (news - alert) has selected and successfully implemented the CommuniGate Pro Internet Communications platform for next generation communication services on a reliable and scalable platform. CommuniGate Systems enables carriers to scale standards-based messaging including SIP and SIP/SIMPLE technology to multi-million subscriber levels with the SIP Farm (patent pending) technology, breaking the barriers to mass adoption of open-standard communications for VoIP and Instant Messaging. Never before has interoperability been possible around SIP due to the sheer scale problems associated with subscribers and bud- dies lists for potentially 100 million or more users in the network. CommuniGate Pro v5.0 is based on open standards, allowing subscribers a choice of clients — IP phones, soft clients, traditional telephony, mobile devices, browsers, IM — all via a single account. Traditional telephone numbers are available through PSTN connectivity and ENUM, while CommuniGate Pro 5.0 integrates with IMS media and content through CG/PL and published APIs, and handles signaling and media for multiple gateways for IP- to-IP, PSTN-to-IP, and PSTN-to-PSTN connectivity. With CommuniGate Pro 5.0, users have a single source for email, collaboration, voice/video, and mobile Internet Communications. http://www.communigate.com http://www.northstate.net

Mitel Extends IP Interoperability with SIP Support By Johanne Torres IP communications provider Mitel (news - alert) announced that it extended its IP interoperability with Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) support in the latest release of the company’s 3300 IP Communications Platform (ICP). “Complementing our broad suite of IP communications solutions, the addition of native SIP support on the 3300 ICP enables customers to take full advantage of their investment in a multi-vendor environment,” explained Ron Wellard, Mitel’s vice president, product development. “We view SIP as the enabler of interoperability and this release allows the 3300 ICP to interconnect with soft-switch vendors that represent more than 90 percent of the soft-switch market as well as offering support for SIP endpoints and applications.” Mitel enables users to integrate the features of the 3300 ICP through generic SIP endpoints and use of existing hunt groups and HotDesking functionalities. The SIP connectivity to Microsoft Office Communicator for softphone, presence, collaboration functionality and third-party call control inter-working with Microsoft Live Communications Server is enabled using SIP, CSTA and XML. http://www.mitel.com

46 INTERNET TELEPHONY® May 2006 Subscribe FREE online at http://www.itmag.com Go To Table of Contents | Go To Ad Index Eicon Unveils SIP Interface for Vocalocity Verizon Enhances Wholesale SIP Gateway Product VoiceXML Voice Browser By Johanne Torres By Laura Stotler In a move to expand its Wholesale Session Initiation Eicon Networks Corporation (news - alert) and Vocalocity Protocol (SIP) Gateway VoIP product, Verizon (quote- news - (news - alert) have announced Eicon Telephony Interface SIP alert) Business announced week that it added new capabilities Control drivers for the Vocalocity Voice Browser. The new Diva to improve interactive communications for customers. New Server SIPcontrol “SIP wrapper” will act as a software adapta- features include metered outbound local calling and directory tion layer, enabling Diva Server telephony boards to be used with assistance or operator services. the Vocalocity VoiceXML Voice Browser. “Verizon Business continues to innovate and advance its VoIP The new adaptation layer offers a SIP-based approach for solutions for wholesale customers,” said Nancy Gofus, vice interfacing with Vocalocity’s platform. It acts as a SIP User president of product marketing for Verizon Business. “These lat- Agent, converting call control information from the Diva Server est key features, combined with the proven performance of our telephony board into SIP messages. Voice channels are converted IP network, give our wholesale customers the added edge they into IP packets and streamed via the RTP protocol into the need to do business in the growing VoIP market.” Vocalocity platform or to another SIP endpoint. The Eicon Diva Wholesale customers can advance and customize their own Server telephony boards, combined with Diva Server SIPcontrol, product suites with the directory assistance and operator service act as an IP/PSTN gateway. They are compliant with the Media features now available with the wholesale SIP Gateway product. Resource Control Protocol (MRCP) and SIP architecture. Wholesale customers will be provided with local, long-distance The Vocalocity VoiceXML Voice Browser manages telephony, and international operator and directory assistance service text-to-speech, automatic speech recognition, DTMF and a num- round-the-clock from geographically dispersed and fully redun- ber of other resources. It includes an Interpreter with speech dant call centers. and telephony integrations to minimize development time and http://www.verizon.com costs. The Eicon Diva Server offers a robust hardware platform for integrating multiple communications applications Please tell the vendors like VoIP, remote access, fax and unified messaging. Connectivity is offered you saw it in through analog, ISDN Basic Rate (BRI) and Primary Rate (PRI), and E1/T1 (sin- INTERNET gle, dual, quad) interfaces. ® http://www.eicon.com TELEPHONY http://www.vocalocity.com Magazine www.itmag.com

Subscribe FREE online at http://www.itmag.com INTERNET TELEPHONY® May 2006 47 Go To Table of Contents | Go To Ad Index CallTower IP Call Center Suite Integrates Cisco Solution By Anuradha Shukla CallTower (news - alert) has introduced the new CallTower IP Call Center Suite, a hosted end-to-end voice and data solution that includes the Cisco (quote - news - alert) Unified Contact Center Enterprise Edition. The integration of Cisco’s solution into its product suite will enable CallTower to provide sophisticated call center capabilities for growth enterprise businesses at the flip of a switch. The new solution will allow the mid-sized and growing businesses to seamlessly add call center operations and capabilities to their portfolio. They can now leverage their existing phones and infrastructure across multiple offices, without having to purchase new hardware. The CallTower IP Call Center Suite enables the representatives and sales agents to be based anywhere, segment customers, monitor resource availability and deliver each contact to the most appropriate resource. Further it allows a single agent to support multiple interactions simultaneously regardless of the communications channel the customer has chosen. Companies now have the choice to expand or contract their call center operations based on sea- sonal requirements. Administrator and user capabilities can also be deployed across a single site or multiple locations, including remote service and support personnel. http://www.calltower.com http://www.cisco.com

Aspect Software Enhances the Patient Experience By Michelle Pasquerello Contact center products supplier Aspect Software (news - alert) is making life a little easier for patients calling into Evanston Northwestern Healthcare. Located in Chicago, the healthcare facility wanted to put itself ahead of the city’s health care competition by offering better patient care and services, both of which were made possible with the implementation of 190 Aspect EnsemblePro seats in its contact center. “The patient experience doesn’t begin when they step into the hospital or doctor’s office, it begins the minute they pick up the phone and we believe that technology, like Aspect EnsemblePro, is helping us achieve our strategic business objective — making the patient experience as valuable and as pleasant as possible,” said Fran Horner, senior director of patient access for Evanston Northwestern Healthcare in a press release. Horner also noted that the facility’s goal is to ensure that patients are receiving the same care on the phone as they would if they were waiting in the hospital. The contact center supports 23 clinical departments and physician locations where it can route calls and will be bringing another 17 online by fall 2006. http://www.aspect.com

48 INTERNET TELEPHONY® May 2006 Subscribe FREE online at http://www.itmag.com Go To Table of Contents | Go To Ad Index Project2 4/11/2006 12:02 PM Page 1 Metaphor Answers SMB’s Call By Erik Linask Metaphor Solutions (news - alert) has launched a Plug & Play Speech IVR, its complete Web-based solution for customers to easily customize and deploy packaged speech IVR applications. The service allows customers to use a Web site to configure and deploy entire automated phone-based customer service solutions involving real- ATTENTION time transactions. Customers simply select a packaged solution, customize its prompts and business variables, and then connect the solution to data at the customer’s site VENDORS! through configured Web services. This breakthrough solution reduces the implementation time of speech IVR applica- Send your News and tions from months to minutes — it also cuts development and testing costs from hundreds of thousands of dollars to virtually nothing, since all deployment steps from solu- Product Releases tion configuration to final testing are cost-free. Once the solution is tested with a phone number provided in the Web site, customers can begin servicing their users through via e-mail to on-demand deployment by Metaphor. After deployment, customers can monitor the [email protected]. application, run service reports, and download report data. The solution certainly resolves the issue of cost, as well as the hardware and soft- Whenever possible, ware maintenance issue — product and service quality will be judged by users as they sign on with the company. please include http://www.metaphorsol.com high-resolution (minimum 300 dpi) color graphics (.BMP, .EPS, .TIF, or .JPG).

Global Crossing Tapped by Mexicana for Call Center System By Johanne Torres Global Crossing (news - alert) announced that it was tapped by Mexicana de Aviación, a Mexican airline carrier serving the Mexico-U.S. market, for Global Crossing’s integrated call center voice services to support its U.S.-based international reservation centers. The new contract calls for Global Crossing to provide the airline with business line services, long distance services, toll-free services, and local digital services across its 20 offices and call center locations in the U.S. “As a recognized best-in-class airline, it is crucial that we are able to rely on superior telecommunications services, such as those delivered by Global Crossing, enabling us to focus on serving our global customer base twenty-four hours a day,” said Santiago Ontanon, EVP and CIO for information technology of Mexicana de Aviación. “Global Crossing’s top quality, cost- effective voice solutions are improving the efficiency of our business operations.” Global Crossing’s bundled voice services provide uCommand, a Web-based management tool, which will enable Mexicana to stay in control of its account info, order services and obtain real time customer support. http://www.globalcrossing.com

50 INTERNET TELEPHONY® May 2006 Subscribe FREE online at http://www.itmag.com Go To Table of Contents | Go To Ad Index TeleTech Boosts on Demand Solution By Tracey E. Schelmetic TeleTech Holdings, Inc., (news - alert) a provider of customer management and business process outsourcing (BPO) services, announced that it has added new functionality to three key suites of its TeleTech OnDemand hosted contact center offering, which was designed to improve the customer experience and reduce the demand for live agents. The new features support easy-to-access information that responds quickly and accurately to customers’ needs, in addition to real-time measurement and coaching to enhance agent performance. Efficient and user-friendly interactive voice response (IVR) and Web services empower customers by automating routine interactions. These features are now part of the TeleTech OnDemand suites for customer experience management, workforce optimization and multichannel interaction routing. By employing TeleTech’s hosted contact center solution, clients can realize more than 50 percent in cost savings over building, integrating and maintaining their own environments, according to the company. Furthermore, the TeleTech OnDemand services can scale easily and quickly to accommodate evolving client needs, delivering business agility and flexibility, which is critical in today’s contact center marketplace. Enhancements have been incorporated into the customer experience management, workforce optimization and multichannel interaction routing suites. http://www.teletech.com

VoiceLog Launches First Hosted/ASP Call Recording Solution VoiceLog LLC (news - alert) has announced the formal launch of its VirtualLogger division. VirtualLogger is a call recording and quality monitoring solutions provider, using the hosted/application services provider model to deliver its services. In addition, VirtualLogger offers other agent optimization technologies, such as speech ana- lytics and real-time dashboards on a similar “hosted” basis. Call recording and quality monitoring are well established disciplines in US call centers, with more than 70% reporting some kind of recording in place. Almost all of this is done via licensed software systems, which can involve costs per workstation of over $1,000 initially and annual maintenance charges of $200, plus internal costs for system administration and data storage. VirtualLogger brings the value of hosted solutions to the call recording and monitoring space, making it easier for both small businesses and enterprises to record, and speeding up the implementation process. It eliminates upfront capital costs and greatly reduces the cost of system administration and storage, all for one small monthly fee. In addition, VirtualLogger reduces both technological and business risk since clients can inex- pensively upgrade to completely new technologies (e.g., traditional telephone to VoIP) and can reduce or eliminate the cost to match changes in business needs. http://www.voicelog.com

Subscribe FREE online at http://www.itmag.com INTERNET TELEPHONY® May 2006 51 Go To Table of Contents | Go To Ad Index mPhase Signs Distribution Agreement with LEA for IPTV Solution By Erik Linask mPhase Technologies, (news - alert) which developed with Bell Labs a system to provide video over fixed broadband networks combining IP addressing with carrier-grade management features, has now partnered with Paris-based LEA S.A.S. LEA, (news - alert) which provides components and subsystems to telecommunications equipment and service providers, will distribute the mPhase TV+ System, taking on marketing and sales support for mPhase’s flagship system to its traditional accounts mPhase TV+ delivers broadband data and high quality video over telephone networks’ both copper DSL and fiber loops allowing telephone companies to compete vigorously in broadband markets. The mPhase System is comprehensive, supporting industry leading hardware products to ensure end-to-end quality for the consumer and profitability for telephone companies The mPhase TV + system is built around an innovative cluster architecture and offers key advantages to phone companies, including: • Improved maintenance environment, with links to industry-standard operations support systems, including element management of IP traffic • Compatibility with industry standard services creation environments • Transport media independence over copper or fiber facilities • A high degree of reliability to protect against network failover • Unprecedented scalability, capable of growing to hundreds of thousands of users http://www.mphasetech.com http://www.leacom.fr

Covad behind Bandwidth.com and CompUSA’s VoIP Offer By Johanne Torres Covad Communications Group Inc. (news - alert) has been chosen to be a preferred DSL and T-1 provider to Bandwidth.com (news - alert) for its VoIP system to be sold through an agreement with office supplies retail chain CompUSA Inc. (news - alert) Bandwidth.com will launch its VoIP system targeting small businesses through CompUSA’s retail locations, commercial sales and Web site. The service is a fully-hosted IP telephony system that bundles Bandwidth.com’s platform and feature set and will be available over Covad T-1 and SDSL voice-optimized access (VOA). Covad’s VOA enables small business customers to conduct multiple phone calls and access large data files concurrently over the same connection. The company controls the flow of voice traffic over its network and prioritizes telephone conversations over data traffic. http://www.covad.com http://www.bandwidth.com http://www.compusa.com

52 INTERNET TELEPHONY® May 2006 Subscribe FREE online at http://www.itmag.com Go To Table of Contents | Go To Ad Index Brightpoint to Distribute Simply Phones with ECCB By Johanne Torres Mobile phone distributor Brightpoint Inc. (news - alert) announced that it entered into a distribution agreement with European Consulting and Computer Business S.A. (ECCB), (news - alert) whereby, Brightpoint will distribute ECCB devices including the Simply Phones. Simply Phones allow users to place Internet-based calls, avoiding the need for a headset. “Our distribution agreement with ECCB ATTENTION VENDORS! is part of Brightpoint’s strategy to promote and distribute Internet-enabled products and services across Australia,” Send your News and Product Releases said Felix Wong, managing director, Brightpoint Australia in a statement. “The via e-mail to [email protected]. agreement also builds on Brightpoint’s commitment in expanding our channel Whenever possible, please include high-resolution offerings in the fast-growing internet calling market.” (minimum 300 dpi) color graphics http://www.brightpoint.com http://www.eccb.com (.BMP, .EPS, .TIF, or .JPG). IBM and 3Com to Deliver IP Telephony Suite for SMBs By Johanne Torres Technology giants IBM (news - alert) and 3Com Corporation (news - alert) announced their plans to offer an IP telephony suite for small and medium enterprises. Specifically, both companies will introduce the 3Com VCX suite of IP telephony solutions on IBM’s “all- in-one” System i business computing solution. The new agreement between the companies will enable small to mid-sized businesses (SMBs) to integrate IP telephony capabilities with the System i, which already comes loaded with hardware, database software, storage and security. IBM and 3Com want to deliver an IP telephony suite that can run in a single Linux on POWER partition on the System i. This will allow enterprises to run business and telephony applications simultaneously, managed by the System I’s management tools. The new suite is a good option for enterprises with 100 to 2,000 users. 3Com delivers a native, standards-based IP telephony and application system using SIP. The suite offers telephony features and applications, including unified messaging, large scale audio conferencing, video conferencing, presence, contact centers and enterprise mobility. http://www.ibm.com http://www.3com.com

VoX Communications Announces New VoIP Wholesale Customers By Stefania Viscusi VoX Communications Corp., (news - alert) a wholly owned subsidiary of eLEC Communications Corp., and provider of retail and wholesale VoIP solu- Please tell tions, announced four additional wholesale agreements with service providers. the vendors VoX’s offerings will give the four providers: Dedicated Network Solutions you saw it in LLC, AllegroTel, OIS Data, and UniversalCall a cost effective way to meet existing and new customer demands in the growing VoIP market. VoX’s solution offers advanced features and enhanced voice quality for its INTERNET customers and will also provide private-label solutions for AllegroTel, ® Dedicated Network Solutions, and UniversalCall. TELEPHONY http://www.voxcorp.net Magazine www.itmag.com

54 INTERNET TELEPHONY® May 2006 Subscribe FREE online at http://www.itmag.com Go To Table of Contents | Go To Ad Index BCE Elix to Distribute Mercom Call Center Call Products Mercom Systems, Inc., (news - alert) a privately held company based in Lyndhurst, (news - alert) New Jersey and BCE Elix, a Bell Canada company focused exclusively on contact center solutions, announced that the two companies have entered into a distribution agreement whereby BCE Elix will add Mercom Audiolog Call Recording Servers and Mercom Interaction Quality (MIQ) Agent Evaluation software to its solutions portfolio. This new partnership will make Mercom’s suite of open architecture recording solutions and quality monitoring tools available to BCE Elix’s mid-market customers. “We are pleased to be working with Mercom,” said Daniel Rouleau, General Manager, Pre-Sales and Solutions Portfolio, at BCE Elix. “We are particularly pleased that Mercom has developed solutions that integrate with our portfolio, which is carefully selected to bring the very best in the market to our customers.” “The integration with the solutions that BCE Elix is currently selling is complete, and Mercom is delighted that our products are now part of the BCE Elix portfolio,” said David Zibelman, Vice President Business Development for Mercom. “The timing for this partnership is ideal since both organizations acknowledge the need to offer reliable TDM and VoIP recording solutions that provide call centers with cost-effective management tools.” http://www.mercom.com http://www.bceelix.com

Vodavi and Covad Team to Provide VoIP Phones for the Very Small Market By Erik Linask Vodavi Technology Inc. (news - alert) and Covad Communications (news - alert) have announced the two companies will provide VoIP endpoints designed for the Very Small Business (VSB) and Small Business (SB). The arrangement calls for Vodavi to provide the new phone models to Covad, a provider of integrated voice and data communications. The new 6800 series handsets will be manufactured by LG-Nortel Co. Ltd., Vodavi’s strategic partner and largest stakeholder. The phones will employ both SIP and MGCP standards, and will operate seamlessly with the Covad vPBX, its PBX designed for companies with fewer than 250 employees. What’s more, despite being targeted for the small business, these phones will provide the same kinds of enhanced features as units designed for enterprise users, like “find me/follow me,” call logs, and contact lists. Prior to Covad’s introduction of the 6800 Series phones, small businesses lacked a variety of cost-effective alternatives. Today, VSBs and SBs can implement the productivity advantages of VoIP with minimal up front costs, making total telecom savings even greater. The phones will fit in with Covad’s all-in-one VoIP solution for smaller businesses. http://www.vodavi.com http://www.covad.com

Subscribe FREE online at http://www.itmag.com INTERNET TELEPHONY® May 2006 55 Go To Table of Contents | Go To Ad Index 3383_AllworxAd_R1.qxd 4/7/06 4:16 PM Page 2

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Getting Users Turned Onto IP Telephony: Office Anywhere

IP telephony can enhance your desktop experience through a converged desktop, but what’s in it for you and other end users in your business unit when you are away from your desk? IP telephony, in fact, can bring you unprecedented mobility options.

Mobility used to mean a cell phone and possibly one or Nomadic users are very well served by laptops, which can more mobile data devices, such as a PDA or pager. If you be plugged into a docking station or use an Ethernet plug or a traveled with your laptop, you were always on the search for WLAN connection. Equipped with a multimedia client and connectivity back to the head office. twinned with the desktop phone, these can deliver rich multimedia capabilities. Security is provided through VPN technol- Office Anywhere ogy whether connected via an on-site WLAN or over the The emergence of ubiquitous broadband wired and wireless Internet via DSL, a cable modem, a hotel Ethernet plug, or a connectivity (via wired and wireless Ethernet, DSL and cable home or hot spot WLAN connection. modem access, and third-generation public cellular) has Locally mobile or campus mobile workers, whether func- changed all that, enabling the realization of taking your office tional specialists, such as nurses or store clerks, or knowledge anywhere. And we’re not just talking about e-mail and instant workers, require mobile devices that provide WLAN voice messaging, SIP-based communications, including IP and data roaming across the building. These generally take the telephony and multimedia, allows you to take your office form of WiFi phone handsets with small displays and possibly wherever you are and delivers a consistent, reliable, secure with push-to-talk functionality, and VoIP-enabled PDAs, pos- communications experience. It also provides you with controls sibly equipped with built-in or peripheral devices, such as bar- over who can contact you, how, and when. code readers, RFID scanners, and printers. Having a multime- There are three general classes of mobile users, though the dia client can provide collaborative capabilities including pres- boundaries among these classes are not rigid. Users can be ence and instant messaging, control over call routing, and nomadic in the sense that they go from place to place and access to corporate directories. want connectivity when they get there. Users can be locally Battery life and recharge times, and talking and standby mobile either within the locale of their work place (e.g., times are particularly critical for heavy usage environments, leveraging wireless LANs or WLANs), and mobile anywhere, such as hospitals. Given that battery life, for WLAN connec- leveraging WLAN hot spots and public broadband wireless tivity, is still a constraint for some applications, sub-optimal services. dual-device solutions may be required. This could consist of, In all cases, you can choose which single mobile device you for example, a WLAN handset and a tablet PC on a cart in use for real-time communications and data access, using soft- healthcare, or a WLAN handset and a specialized non-net- ware IP telephony/multimedia worked handheld data-capture clients to attain a consistent device in retail. experience in accessing informa- Mobile anywhere workers with tion, communicating and col- IT needs to work with end users broad off-site mobility needs are laborating, no matter where they looking for comprehensive capa- are. You may have a choice in and with business units across bilities in a single device. While hands-free, wired, or wireless the enterprise, to ensure that the mobility has become an essential headset, and push-to-talk. The competitive capability, escalating level of standalone functionality benefits of IP Telephony, mobility and costs for public mobile services is is device dependent, with data multimedia collaboration are realized. a major enterprise concern, this synchronization provided when being addressed through tighter connected. The form factor of IT management of this environ- the mobile device can fit the ment. One benchmark device is job, including screen size and ruggedness and even battery the voice-enabled Blackberry equipped with a SIP client, sup- life. Voice quality and adequate application bandwidth needs porting secure e-mail and real-time converged communica- to be delivered even when roaming, along with security, tions including Instant Messaging, personal agents, and pres- privacy and confidentiality. ence. Increased choice is emerging with similar functionality Let’s look at these three types of mobile users. on other platforms such as Pocket PC devices.

58 INTERNET TELEPHONY® May 2006 Subscribe FREE online at http://www.itmag.com Go To Table of Contents | Go To Ad Index Knowledge workers with on- and off-site requirement will ty, support and management, networking implications be best served by dual-mode devices supporting both public including public gateways and WLAN coverage, and stan- wireless and WLAN capabilities. dardization. Therefore IT needs This provides the advantage of to work with end users and higher speed data connectivity with business units across the when on-site. It also allows the enterprise, to ensure that the enterprise to decrease the cost Ubiquitous broadband connectivity benefits of IP Telephony, mobil- associated with using public wire- ity and multimedia collabora- less services to make and receive has enabed the realization of tion are realized. IT calls when roaming the premise (given that up to 50 percent of taking your office anywhere. Tony Rybczynski is Director of calls are received or originated Strategic Enterprise Technologies at on-site). Seamless roaming will Nortel. (quote - news - alert) He allow users to move freely has over 30 years experience in the between the WLAN and public application of packet network tech- cellular environments without session interruption. nology. For more information, please visit http://www.nortel.com.

The Need For Partnership With IT If you are interested in purchasing reprints of this article (in either print or PDF for- IT has the overall responsibility for establishing and evolv- mat), please visit Reprint Management Services online at ing the enterprise IP telephony and real-time converged http://www.reprintbuyer.com or contact a representative via e-mail at communications infrastructure, and needs to address securi- [email protected] or by phone at 800-290-5460.

Subscribe FREE online at http://www.itmag.com INTERNET TELEPHONY® May 2006 59 Go To Table of Contents | Go To Ad Index By John Cimko

VoIP & E911

The VoIP E911 story so far has been a lesson in the pitfalls of “command-and- control” regulation. While it’s easy to agree with the FCC’s objective to ensure that all VoIP customers can make E911 calls, it’s harder to endorse some of the steps the FCC has taken in pursuing this goal.

The agency’s table-pounding actions last year gave VoIP approach in an article published in the Federal (define - news - alert) companies only 120 days to provide Communications Law Journal. Lookabaugh and his col- for delivery of all 911 calls to customers’ local emergency leagues believe that government should concentrate on operators, required VoIP companies to disconnect cus- encouraging industry “to collaborate in a self-regulatory tomers who were not receiving E911 service (the FCC later effort.” backed off that requirement), and barred VoIP providers But how would such an approach work? Lookabaugh and from signing up new customers in markets where they were his colleagues suggest that private certification of VoIP emer- not complying with the FCC’s requirements. The agency’s gency services should focus on software and the characteris- tough stance, however, pointedly stopped short of requir- tics of VoIP networks and systems. The authors stress that ing incumbent LECs to provide direct access to their E911 the certification process must accommodate wide variations networks for all VoIP providers. among the networks and systems used by VoIP providers. The FCC’s approach could make it more difficult to And government oversight would be a key part of the certifi- achieve an important goal for emergency communications: cation mix. Lookabaugh and his colleagues argue that gov- migrating 911 systems to IP-based platforms. Burdening the ernment influence — in the form of the threat of direct reg- industry with unreasonable deadlines and penalties that ulatory intervention or in the form of shared regulatory undercut the competitiveness of VoIP providers may wind up responsibilities with private organizations — would be an being counterproductive. It’s important to keep in mind that important ingredient in making a private certification IP technology will bring valuable enhancements to emergency process work. communications. FCC and other government policymakers Private certification, of course, is not a new idea. should focus on the best way to make this happen. What may Underwriters Laboratories, an independent, non-profit prod- be needed — instead of the FCC’s hard line — is a more uct safety testing and certification organization, has been test- cooperative approach to help bring IP technology to emer- ing products for public safety for more than a century. In the gency communications. telecommunications sector, Telcordia Technologies is involved IP technology can deliver impressive benefits. A report in certifying telecommunications equipment, and the Wi-Fi issued last year by the VON Coalition and the National Alliance, a non-profit organization set up in 1999, has certi- Emergency Number Association (NENA) says that emer- fied the interoperability of more than 2,500 telecommunica- gency calls could include transmission of valuable informa- tions products. And eight years ago the FCC established pri- tion, “such as a caller’s medical records, medical status, lan- vate Telecommunications Certification Bodies (TCBs) for the guage preference, or maps of purpose of certifying that commercial buildings.” The equipment intended for use report notes that VoIP calls within the United States com- could also support an array of plies with FCC requirements. data and video features and IP technology will bring A possible vehicle that gov- functions. For example, pic- ernment regulators could use to tures from crime scenes or acci- valuable enhancements to help set up and coordinate a dents could be provided with VoIP E911 certification process the 911 call, and emergency emergency communications. is the E-911 Implementation responders could give callers Coordination Office. video instructions regarding Legislation enacted in 2004 first aid. required the National One way to move effectively Telecommunications and toward an IP-based E911 system would be to rely on “self- Information Administration and the National Highway regulation” by the VoIP industry, accompanied by govern- Traffic Safety Administration to create the Office. The legis- ment oversight. Three professors (Tom Lookabaugh, Patrick lation gives the Office the job of assisting states, local govern- Ryan, and Douglas Sicker) recently made the case for this ments, and public safety organizations in implementing the

60 INTERNET TELEPHONY® May 2005 Subscribe FREE online at http://www.itmag.com Go To Table of Contents | Go To Ad Index next phase of E911 services. But the Office could also be the benefits of IP technology for emergency communications. responsible for overseeing a private certification program. If the FCC moves away from command-and-control regula- And it could be given a more tion, and toward a system of expansive role in developing a self-regulation along the lines national plan for migrating to described here, it could score a an IP-enabled emergency net- Pictures from crime scenes or accidents hat trick in meeting these three work to handle all emergency goals. IT communications. In fact, H.R. could be provided with the 911 call, and 2418, introduced by emergency responders could give callers John Cimko served for fifteen Congressman Bart Gordon last years at the FCC, and currently year, would assign this respon- video instructions regarding first aid. practices law at Greenberg Traurig sibility to the Office. LLP. The views expressed in this The three big challenges for article are solely those of the government are to make E911 author and should not be attrib- work for all VoIP subscribers, to take advantage of IP tech- uted to his firm or its clients. For additional information, visit the nology for emergency communications, and to make sure firm’s Web site at http://www.gtlaw.com. that government policies don’t hinder the VoIP industry’s ability to continue to grow and provide competitive alterna- If you are interested in purchasing reprints of this article (in either print or PDF for- tives for consumers. The FCC should explore ways to work mat), please visit Reprint Management Services online at with organizations like the E-911 Implementation http://www.reprintbuyer.com or contact a representative via e-mail at Coordination Office in setting up mechanisms to capture [email protected] or by phone at 800-290-5460.

Subscribe FREE online at http://www.itmag.com INTERNET TELEPHONY® May 2005 61 Go To Table of Contents | Go To Ad Index By Hunter Newby

ENUM Lands On Wall Street

There’s no limit to the value of accurate and complete information. It helps keep everyone informed and on the right track in the collective pursuit of anything. In this particular instance, the goal is VoIP peering and, more specifically, ENUM. Make no mistake; there is a lot at stake here. Control of the ENUM numbering plan and the potentially lucrative returns from it are up for grabs.

Over the past year this series has covered the players in this but in my days back at WorldCom in the mid 90s, I remem- space, their services, customer focus, and business models. An ber the LERG Routing Guide being referred to by my provi- attempt to hone broad definitions of terms has been made to sioners as the “Bible” of telephone numbering.” keep everyone in check and on the same page. VoIP peering is This is what Gary Richenaker, Chief Architect, Industry evolving, maturing, and expanding rapidly. Its significance is Information Services, Telcordia, had to say. being noted and its threat to the existing voice business model “They (NeuStar) administer area codes, but the Telcordia is becoming very clear. As a result, it has begun to receive cov- LERG Routing Guide provides all the routing data that all erage at the Wall St. level. carriers require to route and complete calls. In addition, it On January 10, 2006 Credit Suisse First Boston (CSFB) provides critical data needed for billing, etc. Therefore, issued an equity research report titled “Can You Hear Me Telcordia has the authoritative source of information, not Now? ENUM and VoIP’s Emerging Addressing NeuStar. NeuStar is the current administrator who assigns Infrastructure.” In general it’s good to see the association codes to carriers who then implement those codes in the net- between financial research analysts and ENUM because it work and that implementation is represented in the LERG means that they have given it enough consideration to create Routing Guide. While NeuStar currently administer the the report and expended energy in distributing it. If nothing NPAC (Number Portability Administration Center) it only else it helps to raise awareness of ENUM itself. contains roughly four to five percent of telephone numbers. The report provides a good introduction to the technologies Carriers could not complete calls without the information of VoIP, ENUM, DNS, and SIP that are the basis of the mon- contained in the LERG Routing Guide.” umental shift that is taking place, but it was very narrowly This is very interesting, but how does this relate to VoIP focused on only two ENUM directory providers that were, in and ENUM Peering services? Will Telcordia play a role in this CSFB’s opinion, “well positioned,” those being NeuStar and increasingly important and growing space? VeriSign. In CSFB’s opinion NeuStar is “better positioned” to “By extending the information in the Telcordia LERG Routing be the winner of the process that is underway in the United Guide, with the Telcordia VoIP Routing Registry, we provide a States to select a top-level ENUM registry operator. What is migration or evolutionary path for carriers. Calls will be routed in important to note is the CSFB disclaimer that they do and both the PSTN and IP for quite some time and switches will seek to do business with the companies in the report. CSFB have both PSTN and IP interconnection both now and in IMS was one of the underwriters of the NeuStar IPO. for the foreseeable future. If a carrier went with a VeriSign or Considering that they have a vested interest it’s not surpris- NeuStar database, the PSTN and IP routing information would ing that they believe their candidate to be well positioned to be managed separately and two administration processes would succeed. If they didn’t, why would they have invested any- need to be established; one for PSTN (LERG Routing Guide) thing? It’s not the support of NeuStar, or anyone, that needs and one for IP. For carriers who use our VoIP Routing Registry, to be analyzed, but rather the there will be only one administra- facts that support the position. tive process and the routing data Their opinion comes from the would be in one place.” fact that CSFB “views NeuStar Telcordia has the authoritative So, based on this Telcordia as the better positioned vendor, announcement we can count given that the company already source of information, not NeuStar. them in as a VoIP peering service operates the authoritative direc- provider and consider the old- tories that manage all telephone fashioned LERG Routing Guide area codes and numbers in North America.” That’s a very rather IP-trendy. With this knowledge maybe future research strong claim and certainly NeuStar’s experience is worthy of reports will include Telcordia in the mix, not to mention all of an edge in the race to be top tier ENUM manager. the private ENUM registries that are growing out there. Since I’m not an expert, I decided to ask someone at Telcordia is sure to be showing up on a VoIP Peering panel Telcordia what they thought about this. I do know that discussion in some sunny city in the near future. IT Telcordia operates something called the Telcordia Routing Hunter Newby is chief strategy officer for Telx. (news - alert) For Administration (TRA) that produces the Telcordia LERG more information, please visit the company online at Routing Guide. It was rather obscure and not too exciting, http://www.telx.com.

62 INTERNET TELEPHONY® May 2006 Subscribe FREE online at http://www.itmag.com Go To Table of Contents | Go To Ad Index Project3 4/11/2006 12:05 PM Page 1 By Michael Marchioni

The Effect of the Third Screen on Business Applications

Dating as far back as 1997, we have heard about the cell phone’s potential future as the “third screen” after television and computer screens. The third screen has been billed as the new medium for streaming video. Television delivered anywhere, anytime. The third screen is also a marketer’s Nirvana. Think about it. The potential for mobile marketing is endless. Branded games, live news updates, and instant interaction with customers via a press to talk button are just a few examples that come to mind. These new offerings will populate what has typically been a screen devoid of anything more than a calendar and new call or message notification information.

What about the potential for new business applications via do many more things than simply watch television. Just as the the third screen? Is there a killer app out there waiting to PC expanded the possibilities and capabilities of the screen in make use of this untouched real estate to provide additional ways that very few people envisioned when the technology value to businesses? The negative response I often hear is that was new — Internet access, e-mail, and propagation of a mobile phone screen is not large enough to support Web client/server networks — so shall the third screen. But I will browsing or integration with business applications normally argue that the third screen is not limited to the cell phone. accessed from a PC. Or, Internet access from my mobile serv- The third screen is present on any “smart phone.” That is, an ice provider is too slow. Another common complaint is, “I IP, WiFi, or mobile telephone equipped with an operating sys- don’t type with my thumbs.” tem such as Windows Mobile or CE. True on all counts, but here’s the catch: Why do we have to What will the killer business apps of the third screen look like? think in terms of using the mobile phone only to accomplish The reality is nobody knows. That is, nobody knows with any the same tasks we currently do from a PC? Consider the tech- certainty. But, if history is any indicator, the killer apps of the nology on the horizon sure to enhance the one device that third screen will be very different from the killer apps of the second screen, just as the killer apps of the second screen were most every business already depends on — the telephone. radically different from the first screen. The smart phone is not According to a recent report published by TEQConsult in a replacement for the PC, it is a new type of device that shares 2005 the percentage of IP telephones sold eclipsed TDM tele- commonalities with the PC, but it is not a PC. Just as the PC, in phones for the first time. Additionally, research from CTIA most instances, is not a practical replacement for the tele- suggests that about 75 percent of Americans aged 15 and over phone. While both devices types — the PC and the smart own a cell phone. IP telephones, like cell phones, will increas- phone are capable of sending and receiving voice, video, and ingly contain a powerful OS like Windows Mobile or data, they are two very different device types of with very dif- Windows CE. In essence, the telephone has or will become a ferent uses: a mobile device versus a fixed device, a very small small, yet very powerful computer. This includes wired IP screen versus a full size screen, a dial pad versus a keyboard and telephones, WiFi telephones, and cell phones. Add dual mode mouse. Rather than dwelling on these differences as limitations, when we consider combining emerging technologies such as SIP, handsets into the mix and you have the potential for a single RFID, IPV6, peer to peer communications, voice recognition, device capable of enabling business voice conversation and WLAN/cellular handoff, unified corporate systems access from When we consider combining communications, and presence in anywhere, in or out of the office. a smart phone device, the poten- So, in the near future, many emerging technologies in a smart phone tial to create business specific of us will have these IP, WiFi, or applications is limitless. The key dual mode telephones that are device, the potential to create business to the killer apps of the future is also mini PC’s capable of pro- that the power of the content cessing voice, video, and data. specific applications is limitless. accessed through the third screen So what? What is the real advantage to a business? lies in the media itself — the ability to do what once was only possible from a fixed location That question brings us back to the concept of the third from anywhere, at any time, from any device. That is the true screen. Traditionally, as described above, the third screen killer app. IT implied a new medium for streaming video. This definition, however, is very one dimensional. Television, the first screen, Michael Marchioni is director of product marketing at Iwatsu Voice was a one dimensional device. As we all know, its singular Networks. (news - alert) For more information, please visit the function was and is to receive broadcast television signals. The company online at http://www.iwatsu.com. PC, the second screen, made it possible to use the “screen” to

64 INTERNET TELEPHONY® May 2006 Subscribe FREE online at http://www.itmag.com Go To Table of Contents | Go To Ad Index VoIP Demo Conf 06 House Ad.qxp 4/11/2006 2:50 PM Page 1

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Continuity Planning 101 The Internet Telephony Solution

In the wake of the 2005 hurricane disasters on the United States Gulf Coast and the tsunami disaster earlier in the year, the Enterprise Communications Association (ECA) and TMC launched an initiative to assist enterprises and local government groups to better prepare for adverse events. Press conferences and meetings were held at the Internet Telephony Conference & EXPO Fall 2005 in Los Angeles and January 2006 in Ft. Lauderdale. Our first column on this subject was published in January 2006 and continued in March and April.

The above activities have resulted in the formation of the define and limit the scope of the plan. The terms Disaster Disaster Planning Communications Forum (DPCF). Preparedness Plan, Business Continuity Plan, and Disaster Recovery Plan are generally not clearly understood by most The initial objectives are: enterprises. These terms have been frequently perceived as 1. The collection and development of materials to begin a interchangeable which only highlights the need for a spe- disaster planning reference library. Initially, this library cialist to provide guidance. Let’s explore the three phases of a will consist of materials already available from DPCF business continuity plan: members and other key vendors in this market. 2. The development of a Disaster Planning Checklist tar- Phase 1: Planning — This is the most critical of the three geting enterprises and local government. phases, as it defines the boundaries for the entire process of 3. The development of a Disaster Planning Guide. The avoiding the interruption of normal operations. The distinc- guide will begin with the above list and expand into a tion between a disaster and a simple discontinuance of serv- complete resource for disaster planning. Both the ice is solely based on the relative severity of the problem. For checklist and the guide will be made available by the example, a short-term power outage (most common form of TMC and the ECA. business interruption) can usually be overcome simply by having a backup generator in place. However, maintaining TMC has set up access to this Forum at: business continuity after having your office destroyed by fire http://www.tmcnet.com/channels/disaster-preparedness/ requires a far different strategy. In that event, failing to have a TMC will also be hosting a chat room for DPCF members solid plan in place could mean a total inability to restore and an open forum on operations and the enterprise TMCnet.com. would cease to exist. Previous columns examined how IP Communications pro- Phase 2: Business vides a convenient and cost- Continuity Required — The effective technology for business Failing to have a solid plan in place key here is to define what level continuity planning. A case was could mean a total inability to of interruption is unacceptable also presented for utilizing and develop an avoidance plan. experienced vendors, resellers, restore operations and the enterprise For example, critical operations and consulting firms to formu- such as hospital services and late and implement an enter- would cease to exist. emergency response functions prise-wide business continuity require a 7 x 24 communica- plan. Employing a specialist is tions network justifying a definitely recommended for sev- major outlay of resources. eral reasons. Maintaining functions such as First, the question of how to deal with a disaster is com- sales and accounting operations are not life critical or even plex and perceived very differently by individual enterprise critical to the survival of the enterprise, as long as the servic- organizations. Significantly, even the initial designation es are restored in a reasonable time period. For these opera- assigned for a company’s disaster planning project can both tions, a 7x24 failover plan may not be required.

66 INTERNET TELEPHONY® May 2006 Subscribe FREE online at http://www.itmag.com Go To Table of Contents | Go To Ad Index Phase 3: Recovery — This phase is directly and inversely same time. Lastly, these same technologies make managed proportional to Phase 1. The better the plan the shorter the services look very attractive, which will be the subject of next recovery phase. Even if the primary site is rendered totally month’s column. inoperable for an extended period, a plan that includes the If your company is interested in business continuity plan- immediate shift to a failover site can shrink the recovery period ning please visit http://www.tmcnet.com/channels/disaster- to the few seconds or minutes required for the transition. preparedness/ to view additional information provided by DPCF members, TMC and the ECA. IT Although the massive disasters of 2005 brought attention to the need for business continuity, they have diverted the Max Schroeder is a board member of the ECA, media relations focus to planning for major disasters. Actually, most enter- committee chairman, and liaison to TMC. He is also the Sr. Vice prises are impacted by more ordinary disruptions, like build- President of FaxCore, Inc. ing fires, power outages from ice storms, transit strikes in large cities like New York, and other common events. A Rich Tehrani is the President and Group Editor in Chief at TMC and major focus of the DPCF will be to educate businesses on is Conference Chairman of Internet Telephony Conference & EXPO. how Internet Telephony and converged technologies have totally changed the business continuity industry. The latest If your organization has an interest in participating in the TMC/ECA developments in VoIP and wireless communications provide Disaster Preparedness Communications Forum, please contact for options that were just not available ten, or even five years [email protected] or [email protected] ago. For example, the old method of having a backup site with an expensive PBX and other equipment does not apply If you are interested in purchasing reprints of this article (in either print or PDF for- in today’s world. Plus, today’s VoIP and Web technologies mat), please visit Reprint Management Services online at allow for a company to implement a plan that both improves http://www.reprintbuyer.com or contact a representative via e-mail at current operations and incorporates a failover plan at the [email protected] or by phone at 800-290-5460.

Subscribe FREE online at http://www.itmag.com INTERNET TELEPHONY® May 2006 67 Go To Table of Contents | Go To Ad Index Centillium’s Faraj Aalaei

Rich Tehrani’s Executive Suite is a monthly feature in which leading countries. executives in the VoIP/IP Communications industry discuss their com- “There is much more competition in pany’s latest developments with TMC president Rich Tehrani as well other parts of the world for broadband,” he told me. The CLECs are profitable as providing analysis on industry news and trends. and are doing well at significantly lower rates than we charge in this country. Centillium CEO Faraj Aalaei is the guiding force behind the company’s successful track record as a leading innovator of high perform- Video over DSL, IPTV, and other ance, cost effective semiconductor solutions for “last mile” broadband triple play capabilities access deployments. An industry pioneer and holder of two patents, Many operators in Europe and parts of Asia are providing ADSL2+ at 24 Aalaei has spent over 24 years at the forefront of technical advance- Mbps, and 50 Mbps in Japan. These ments — from helping develop the world’s first broadband modem for higher bit rates are offered at lower CATV networks to the introduction of Centillium’s high capacity prices than what we pay in the U.S. For convergent technology for DSL, optical and VoIP applications. example, in some countries, it costs 20 dollars for 50 Mbps DSL connections. Faraj told me he currently pays $40 for Centillium (news - alert) is a provider type services while, in other countries, 1.5 Mbps best effort service — he of broadband access solutions at the FTTH is real. Some of our telcos aren’t actually gets 200 kbps. systems level. Among other things they even considering it. “Why is this the case?” I wondered. make the silicon that manages DSL We aren’t taking enough leadership in One explanation we agreed upon was connections as well as VoIP. (define - connecting users to best available tech- that there is a lack of U.S. competition news - alert) The company’s CEO Faraj nology like other countries. Japan, and U.S. loops are longer. Fiber to the Aalaei is quite knowledgeable about Korea, and China are all actively curb or neighborhood could reduce communications technology and I have deploying fiber to the home. costs however. been awaiting the opportunity to get VPON is the standard that Verizon is his thoughts on a number of issues as using and it uses a lower bit rate and is Convergence of wireless and wireline follows. asymmetrical. They are focusing on (demystifying IMS) buildings while Asian service providers Users are getting wireline and wireless Status of broadband in the U.S. are going to homes. from different service providers. We cur- versus globally rently need multiple devices to get these We are falling behind in terms of The two-tiered Internet services. IMS allows blended lifestyle access to broadband, including avail- Other countries aren’t looking at two services any time or place. Video any- ability in all regions and, more impor- tiers. The services over the pipe are where is one of the goals here. The tantly, the quality of broadband. We are yours to win or lose. Telcos are Phone Company’s infrastructure has to on dirt roads while other countries are becoming more creative but they aren’t be updated to support service delivery. riding on 16-lane highways. embracing a two-tiered Internet. It makes sense to go to IMS as you Asia and Europe have much faster I asked Faraj if he thought there was need one integrated services platform — service. We have 1.5 megabit best effort a similar level of competition in other not a different network for every device

68 INTERNET TELEPHONY® May 2006 Subscribe FREE online at http://www.itmag.com Go To Table of Contents | Go To Ad Index or infrastructure. The goal is to have an We need an environment where there have 50 percent fiber in the next 10 integrated services platform, regardless is no monopoly. The state of the FTTH years. Other countries have a free for all, of access technology. This will allow environment in Asia is incredible. User so entrepreneurs build companies that customers to float between service optical modems are being used in Japan. supply users with services they want and points without feeling the difference. These devices look simpler than a DSL the incumbents must change to keep up. Furthermore, softswitch-based control modem and they have an optical con- We are in neither camp. We are stuck allows you to sell users services on the nection coming into them and allow in the middle. There isn’t true competi- fly, and this is very critical in the rela- data transfer at 1 Gbps upstream or tion and the government doesn’t push tionship with the consumer. If you had downstream. The optical box is sold to broadband penetration. This is why IMS ten years ago you couldn’t have telcos for $100 a piece. Faraj wants other changes in the infra- done as much with it, but today, the user This sort of bandwidth allows users to structure so we have competitiveness in devices and applications have outpaced choose their applications and allows service and application layer. the ability for the network to keep up. full-blown video telephony, among The network has to migrate to keep other things. Centillium’s continued growth in the up with the user, so we are now invest- Faraj believes the interface to the broadband space ing in reality — not something for the home should not be monopolized by Centillium is investing in next-gener- future. We need upward mobility in cable companies and the like. “You ation DSL technology, such as VDSL 2. terms of solutions. Every service creates should be able to pick a box on your They have no product yet, but have a new set of hardware-based investments own. Some boxes could do some things announced they are going in that direc- IMS creates a user-centric paradigm that others can’t,” he said. tion and will leverage their experience in as the network adapts itself to what the “A service provider who controls the the space. user is doing. This allows the service box can control everything,” he said This will allow users higher and provider to continue to sell to users. emphatically. higher bandwidth levels and will be a hybrid between fiber and optical. They IMS infrastructure is access agnostic, We need to define an interface and are still working on Gigabit Ethernet integrated, and IP-based. We just need make it standard and allow people to PON. to worry about what the user wants. buy whatever box they want. “This could break the logjam,” Service bundling Last mile technologies Faraj said, referring to the cable/telco Our situation is not ideal and Access technology for 100 years was a duopoly. bundling is a challenge for competition piece of wire and never changed. The Faraj acknowledges that a competitive from new entrants. We should allow providers to compete at the service level. new services, like Caller ID and three- CLEC market won’t happen in the U.S., People can pay more but get the service way calling, brought more money for so he wants to free up the interfaces. they want. In the end, interesting con- telcos and didn’t require new infra- He argues that the same thing hap- tent still wins out. structure. pens in the wireless industry where the Now, new services are being delivered phones are locked so you can’t keep the IMS applications are coming like a genie coming out of the bottle. device. One of the things I liked about this Services are defining the access technol- “You need to throw away the phone. interview is the refreshing look at how ogy; not the other way around. People In other countries this is not the case. we can have more broadband competi- want to share albums — and pictures Opening up the devices needs to hap- tion without a CLEC market. Centillium are eight megapixels in size. This is driv- pen in the wireless and wireline mar- supplies components around the globe ing the need for access networks to kets,” he stated. and, as such, Faraj Aalaei is in an improve and upgrade. People find appli- Faraj finished the thought by saying excellent position to see how far the U.S. cations where they want to communi- that, “unless we do this, in the world of has fallen behind in broadband access. cate and need that bandwidth. Phone IP end-user mobility, we will always be He also has great ideas on how we can companies will have to supply it or lose dragging behind other countries.” restore increased levels of broadband the customer. competition to the markets. For more Users are defining what access tech- The state of U.S. broadband information, please visit Centillium nologies service providers need to put in Some countries enforce broadband online at http://www.centillium.com. and consumers will pay for the access. rules — saying such things as, you will IT

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TMCnet Traffic Vs. Fortune 100 Web Sites Web Site Alexa Rank Web Site Alexa Rank Microsoft 14 J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. 14,457 Walt Disney 24 Prudential Financial 14,636 Dell 54 Electronic Data Systems 15,948 Bank of America Corp. 91 DuPont 16,464 Hewlett-Packard 112 Albertson's 16,736 United Parcel Service 134 MCI 17,355 Target 172 Johnson & Johnson 17,672 Intl. Business Machines 178 Caremark Rx 19,488 Best Buy 191 Time Warner 19,824 Wal-Mart Stores 206 Kroger 22,247 FedEx 264 Citigroup 23,364 American Express 323 Dow Chemical 24,784 Costco Wholesale 458 American Intl. Group 29,317 J.C. Penney 476 Wellpoint 30,204 Sears Roebuck 505 Northrop Grumman 30,706 Over 18.0 Million Page Views* Intel 594 Exxon Mobil 30,888 Lowe's 597 Berkshire Hathaway 31,247 Over 960,000 Unique Visitors* Sprint 706 Nationwide 32,412 *Source: Web Trends March, 2006 Home Depot 799 ChevronTexaco 34,608 Cisco Systems 807 Hartford Financial Services 35,363 Wachovia Corp. 817 New York Life Insurance 38,673 Webtrends — TMCnet.com Tremendous Traffic Growth Verizon Communications 832 Abbott Laboratories 38,858 Motorola 888 Mass. Mutual Life Insurance 39,906 SBC Communications 1,395 Bristol-Myers Squibb 44,368 Lockheed Martin 45,938 TMCnet 1,424 Lehman Brothers Hldgs. 47,604 Walgreen 1,612 United Technologies 48,222 AT&T 2,610 Alcoa 50,904 Ingram Micro 2,866 McKesson 51,152 BellSouth 2,901 Delphi 54,076 Ford Motor 3,256 Cardinal Health 60,838 General Electric 3,525 News Corp. 61,156 General Motors 3,924 Johnson Controls 73,784 CVS 4,064 Viacom 78,352 Merrill Lynch 4,539 ConocoPhillips 89,638 Coca-Cola 5,008 Sysco 90,392 Boeing 5,422 Weyerhaeuser 104,016 State Farm Insurance 5,890 PepsiCo 110,796 Procter & Gamble 6,334 Duke Energy 111,990 Wells Fargo 6,640 UnitedHealth Group 137,438 Allstate 7,611 International Paper 139,042 Safeway 7,792 Valero Energy 144,388 TIAA-CREF 8,860 Altria Group 145,688 Merck 9,506 AmerisourceBergen 176,057 Goldman Sachs Group 10,546 Archer Daniels Midland 187,641 Honeywell Intl. 11,860 Sunoco 202,105 Pfizer 11,920 Tyson Foods 216,729 Morgan Stanley 12,638 St. Paul Travelers Cos. 247,408 Medco Health Solutions 12,914 Marathon Oil 253,022 MetLife 13,568 HCA 388,963 Caterpillar 14,424 Plains All Amer. Pipeline 599,128

**Source: Alexa.com ranks Web sites by traffic. The Note: Alexa.com ranks Web sites to number indicates a site’s proximity to being the their proximity to being #1. number one most visited Web site. Date: 4/13/06. The lower the number, the higher the Alexa is an Amazon.com Company. Neither ranking and therefore the greater the Alexa.com nor Amazon.com endorse, or are affiliat- traffic. Yahoo!, the world’s busiest ed with, TMCnet.com in any way. Web site, is ranked #1 by Alexa.com VoIP Testing Tools scripts and line protocols, users can tailor test scenarios to meet a wide The following pages feature over 30 VoIP test solution manufac- range of testing requirements. turers and their products. For an industry dealing with consolidation Each unit supports 192 SIP sub- at every turn, it appears that this market is still wide open. Some of scribers being simulated with full bearer path testing and support for these vendors offer point solutions for testing specific elements of a registration, authentication, VoIP network; others offer complete end-to-end VoIP lifecycle solu- G.711/G.729 encoding and proxy servers tions. In the end, all of these vendors offer technology that is via software selectable parameters. The actions of each simulated sub- designed to help service providers and enterprises who are deploy- scriber are independently controlled ing VoIP deliver a product that meets their requirements. through unique parameter fields These solutions feature new levels of testing capacity and scalabil- defined in user programmed Call Scripts. Call Scripts include capabilities ity, and they are designed to test carrier grade applications, such as for testing signaling, dialing, Voice over VoIP and IPTV, with increasing forays into IMS testing. These ven- Packet, QoS (GMOS, G-PSQM, G-PESQ dors test every relevant protocol, and every type of access, includ- R-Factor,) digit decoding, tone sending, path verification, and tone receive. The ing wireless. Scripts define calling patterns and can We also list among the testing vendors two testing labs that have simulate practically any action a live carved out a name for themselves in the industry. caller can perform. Scripts can also simulate multiple subscribers allowing So, if you’re in the market for a testing solution, we invite you to testing of multiple-party calls such as use this list as a starting point. conference calling.

Arca Technologies Agilent Technologies ments by segmenting an IP network for emutel Harmony Voice Quality Tester fault isolation — great for network http://www.arca-technologies.com http://www.agilent.com/comms delay and clarity analysis; • Assess voice performance of Pre- (news - alert) emutel Harmony is an (news - alert) The Voice Quality VoIP Networks; and efficient, cost-effective, and flexible Tester (VQT) is a comprehensive and • Test voice quality for VoIP end tool, invaluable for use in the develop- objective voice quality test system. It users — VQT emulates an IP phone. ment, performance verification, and enables the design, deployment, and pre-deployment testing of many types operation of voice services on next of VoIP, ISDN, and analog equipment. generation networks by providing accu- Ameritec Corporation The product combines comprehensive rate and objective testing of voice service quality. The VQT provides detailed Fortissimo NLG-IP load testing and network simulation test and analysis capabilities for voice http://www.ameritec.com capabilities, detailed protocol analysis, quality on modern telephony networks extensive call statistics, and quality of such as IP. (news - alert) The Fortissimo NLG-IP service measurements in an easily The VQT Ethernet VoIP interface is is a SIP network load generator that affordable and user-friendly package. available on the J6800A Network simulates high volumes of SIP sub- An advanced Bulk Call generator, the Analyzer’s 10/100 Mbps Ethernet NIC. scribers placing calls into the network. emutel Harmony’s modular architecture The VQT Ethernet VoIP interface sup- The unit is designed to give the user provides a powerful, robust platform ports VoIP call generation using the flexibility to serve a wide range of that can be tailored to meet your cur- SIP and H.323, and the G.711 and applications associated with switch and rent testing requirements and expanded G.729 codecs. The VQT Ethernet VoIP network testing. This high volume of to include additional options as your interface enables testing directly into an bulk call generation can be combined needs evolve. A single system can pro- IP network for the following applications: with complex call testing capability. vide anything from one to 15 Ethernet • Troubleshoot voice quality impair- Through the use of user defined call interfaces, eight to 120 E1/T1 inter-

72 INTERNET TELEPHONY® May 2006 Subscribe FREE online at http://www.itmag.com Go To Table of Contents | Go To Ad Index Project1 3/29/2006 12:16 PM Page 1 faces, 16 to 240 analog interfaces, or MGTS are multi-user, multi-protocol, Cisco IP telephony environments. any combination of the above. programmable test systems designed ClarusIPC Operations delivers active, The emutel Harmony provides an inte- to significantly reduce product devel- end-to-end testing of the functionality grated IP and TDM platform designed to opment time and costs while ensuring of each phone on the enterprise net- enable testers to completely surround a conformance to telecom industry work, throughout the entire network device under test. This wrap-around per- standards. Their power is achieved lifecycle. By automatically and system- formance testing enables end-to-end call through a range of hardware plat- atically testing and validating all user routing and ensures seamless commu- forms, a line of Catapult-designed functionality in a Cisco IP telephony nication between IP-based equipment network interface cards, and a test system, ClarusIPC enables organiza- and legacy TDM networks. library of over 700 protocols. tions to conduct the decades old indus- The DCT2000 and MGTS reduce try best practice of a nightly health product development time by allowing check of the entire telephony environ- Brix Networks multiple independent users to perform ment. ClarusIPC Operations gives BrixVision their tests concurrently. During the organizations visibility into their IP net- http://www.brixnet.com early stages of development, these works, providing vital information and systems can emulate network equip- assurance. ClarusIPC Operations fea- Brix Networks (news - alert) recently ment that is either prohibitively expen- tures include: unveiled its IPTV service assurance sive to purchase or not readily avail- • Deployment and operations config- portfolio, a comprehensive offering able. Later, the DCT2000 and MTGS uration verification. designed to give service providers can support load testing to measure • Automated, scheduled and cus- complete visibility into the quality of how much traffic the equipment can tomized testing. video content, the underlying delivery handle. These systems can be • Automated, standardized reporting. infrastructure, and the overall customer upgraded and expanded as testing • Certified integration with Network experience. needs change. Management Systems. With BrixVision, service providers can DCT and MGTS users are able to cre- • Remote troubleshooting of individ- perform root-cause analysis to identify ate complex, multi-protocol test ual and group phones dispersed over IP transmission versus video quality sequences with a set of graphical tools. broad geographic areas. impairments, monitor end-to-end video These tools are particularly useful for • Trouble identification and isolation quality, and proactively monitor and developing and executing tests to sim- tools for the enterprise help desk. manage their subscribers’ experience ulate heavily loaded conditions and throughout the lifecycle of their services. allow the user to change test parame- Additionally, the IPTV Infrastructure ters in real-time. Users are able to sig- Empirix Verification Package measures the key nificantly reduce the time needed to Hammer XMS performance indicators (KPIs) of a net- develop comprehensive 3G, VoIP, SS7, http://www.empirix.com work, such as jitter, latency, and frame and many other telecom tests. loss, and correlates these metrics with Empirix’s (news - alert) Hammer the overall user experience, which is XMS next-generation monitoring sys- critical when troubleshooting quality Clarus Systems tem for VoIP service providers — problems. The Infrastructure ClarusIPC Operations Hammer XMS 1.4 — contains a host of Verification Package also includes an http://www.clarussystems.com features intended to help service IPTV dashboard that provides network providers deliver higher quality service operators with configuration, schedul- Clarus Systems, (news - alert) to customers at lower cost. ing, monitoring, and reporting capabili- recently unveiled a new version of its These features include: ties to enable proactive means of VoIP testing software designed specifi- • Support for new protocols includ- assuring customer satisfaction. cally for mid-size to large enterprise IP ing H.323, ISDN, TCAP; networks. Through automated, end-to- • Improvements to Hammer XMS’ end testing down to the individual unique media analysis capabilities with Catapult Communications phone level, ClarusIPC Operations is new RTP statistics and improved diag- DCT2000/MGTS designed to accelerate network deploy- nostics; http://www.catapult.com ments, reduce operations costs, enable • New Error by Type Report; and remote trouble shooting, and aim for • Enhanced call correlation to better (news - alert) The DCT2000 and maximum availability of enterprise handle NATing in Session Border

74 INTERNET TELEPHONY® May 2006 Subscribe FREE online at http://www.itmag.com Go To Table of Contents | Go To Ad Index Controllers. voice quality. assessment, testing, and assurance, Hammer XMS combines patent- • ReporterAnalyzer, a NetFlow-based performance monitoring of VoIP pending signaling analysis, high-per- monitoring and analysis solution that servers/applications and the network formance probes, and a highly scalable provides an enterprise-wide view into (including gateways, phones, routers, architecture, enabling service providers which applications are using band- switches), ongoing capacity planning to quickly identify and troubleshoot width, who is using them, and when. and service level monitoring, be easy to problems and efficiently monitor cus- install and monitor through compre- tomer Service Level Agreements (SLAs). The system tracks VoIP and hensive dashboard views of the infra- TDM protocol activity as well as media GL Communications structure and applications, along with quality in real time for every call, 24x7. Wireless VQT Solutions immediate alerting. Data from multiple remote probes can http://www.gl.com The PROGNOSIS solution offers the be centralized and correlated, making following: reports and real-time diagnostic data GL Communications Inc, (news - • Real-time business views: accessible through a Web interface. Immediate access to call detail records Configuration options range from a alert) recently announced a “drive testing enhancement” to their Wireless such as calls in progress, delay-to-dial- cost effective All-in-One configuration tone rates, and incoming and outgoing to broad carrier-scale deployments. Voice Quality Testing (VQT) Solutions. Users of this new product can automat- calls by gateway bearer channel. ically analyze voice quality of their wire- • Capacity planning: Differentiate Fluke Networks less network as they drive through their incoming and outgoing calls and geographic region of interest. Features understand loading by route pattern, VoIP Lifecycle Test Suite route group, route list, and gateway. As http://www.flukenetworks.com include: a complete portable solution, automated call control for most mobile an example, a major U.S. financial institution was able to decommission a Fluke Networks (news - alert) offers phone models, support for Bluetooth, and mapping software with voice quali- third of its gateway capacity, signifi- a comprehensive approach designed to cantly reducing the institution’s teleph- enable the management of the com- ty results and mean opinion scores stamped with GPS time and location ony costs. plete VoIP lifecycle, from pre-deploy- • Route pattern availability: Easily coordinates. ment qualification of a network through navigate to gateways (configured for deployment, ongoing monitoring and This tool is conveniently packaged, the route pattern) to view the bearer management, troubleshooting, and as it plugs right into the cigarette channel status and endpoints. Changes planning for future growth. The solu- lighter, and connects to a PC Notebook to route patterns, route lists, route tion includes: using USB connections. Calls are auto- groups, and gateways are checked • NetTool VoIP, a portable tool for matically and continuously placed and automatically, and alerts generated if down or degraded. testing communications between the IP voice quality statistics are gathered and phone and other elements of the VoIP mapped. Other quality measures include round trip delay (RTD) meas- network, and for troubleshooting prob- NetHawk lems at the network’s edge. urements, noise and signal levels, jitter, • OptiView Protocol Expert Plus, a and clipping occurrences. NetHawk EAST VoIP Testing protocol analysis and monitoring solu- Along with automated wireless net- http://www.nethawk.fi tion that can isolate and resolve prob- work testing, GL’s VQT Solutions can lems such as network degradation and also support standard PSTN, VoIP, and NetHawk (news - alert) EAST, slow response times. T1 E1 networks. Environment for Automated System • OptiView Link Analyzer, a hardware Test, is a VoIP capable testing platform analyzer that gives full visibility into designed to simulate and performance network traffic. It reports on network Integrated Research test an extensive list of VoIP technolo- traffic and provides real-time packet PROGNOSIS IP Telephony gies in advanced communication net- capture and analysis, QoS metrics, and works. The most popular technologies Manager supported include SIP, RTP/RTCP, alerts. http://www.ir.com • OptiView Integrated Network Megaco (H.248) and MGCP. NetHawk Analyzer, a portable analyzer that cap- (news - alert) PROGNOSIS IP EAST also supports security testing tures and analyzes voice traffic, using Telephony Manager is a solution with protocols such as TLS, IPsec, and advanced algorithms to determine the designed to provide network readiness COPS with DQoS. NetHawk EAST can be deployed to

Subscribe FREE online at http://www.itmag.com INTERNET TELEPHONY® May 2006 75 Go To Table of Contents | Go To Ad Index evaluate SIP presence applications and Minacom and utilization of all network interfaces media quality performance of equip- Service Level Test (not just a couple of links) so you will ment and networks. PoC (Push to Talk know that your entire LAN and WAN over Cellular) is an example of a pres- Automation Solution are operating at full capacity. This pro- ence application that can be deployed http://www.minacom.com in the IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS). vides complete “blanket coverage” of Voice quality methods include PESQ, your network, giving you a complete (news - alert) From the flexible PAMS and PSQM for live and post picture of your network’s health and PowerProbe 6000 capable of housing monitoring analysis. For video testing, performance characteristics. NetHawk EAST supports H.263 and multiple ISDN, TDM, IP and analog Error statistics are collected for all H.264 decoding. voice interface modules, to the interfaces and are evaluated for severity PowerProbe 500 with for analog and criticality to give you ultimate voice/fax and IP-data/VoIP/video test- awareness of your network’s weak Ixia ing, to the PowerProbe 2108 trunk test- points so you can strengthen them. IxVoice/IxChariot ing platform, Minacom offers a variety This is crucial for VoIP implementa- http://www.ixiacom.com of hardware to satisfy your particular tions where low incidence of errors and testing and interface requirements. high throughput are required to insure (news - alert) IxVoice is a compre- The PowerProbe 6000 ISDN/TDM/IP that quality of service does not suffer. hensive hardware and software test probe houses three analog test mod- Additional features include the ability framework that provides unified VoIP ules, and two IP/VoIP test modules for to track broadcasts traffic across your and PSTN test solutions for the tele- true converged network testing. A network so you can easily know which com/network equipment manufacturer, Linux-based, 19” rack-mountable net- devices are transmitting the most carrier and enterprise markets. With work computer, this carrier-grade broadcasts as a percent of traffic. Other its cost-effective and scalable test probe is highly scaleable, remotely capabilities of SwitchMonitor include libraries it addresses all major VoIP upgradeable, and capable of running network inventory information collec- protocols: SIP, SCCP (Skinny), H.323, the full library of Minacom test agents. tion and download, equipment uptime MGCP, H.248 (MEGACO) as well as Using Minacom’s Portable tracking, and support contract informa- TDM and analog telephony services. PowerProbe 6000 with a standalone tion tracking and expiration notification. Functional, load and interoperability verison of DirectQuality server on a lap- issues are easily determined using a top allows you to evaluate and monitor unique drag and drop architecture for voice, fax, and modem services over IP. instant creation of test scenarios with You can accelerate service deployment NetIQ pre-defined visual blocks. IxVoice and troubleshoot problems in the field VoIP Security Solution automates the testing of networks and as they occur. With separate interfaces http://www.netiq.com/solutions/voip devices using a multi-interface, multi- for fax, modem, analog voice, and IP technology approach while measuring services, you can simultaneously NetIQ Corp. (news - alert) recently and analyzing quality of voice and qualify multiple services — replicating launched the NetIQ VoIP Security quality of fax. the actual customer experience. Solution to address organizations’ IxChariot is a test tool for emulating The PowerProbe 500 service level increasing needs to assure the security real-world applications to predict test probe is a 1U, 19” rack-mountable of their VoIP environments. The NetIQ device and system performance under Linux-based network computer, hous- VoIP Security Solution is designed to realistic load conditions. Comprised of ing a two-wire analog interface and two enable those using Cisco IP Telephony IP-interface modules. The PowerProbe to improve security by reducing expo- IxChariot Console, Performance 500 is custom-designed for dedicated sure time and protecting against loss of Endpoints, and IxProfile, the IxChariot or converged VoIP, analog voice, fax, product family offers thorough per- video and data over IP service quality confidential data, and is based on NetIQ’s experience with managing more formance assessment and device test- and connectivity testing. than 400,000 IP phones. ing by emulating hundreds of protocols The NetIQ VoIP Security Solution across thousands of network end- Net Latency aggregates and correlates security event points. IxChariot provides the ability to SwitchMonitor information collected from the various confidently assess the expected per- http://www.netlatency.com elements of the solution. It enables formance characteristics of any appli- organizations to both monitor the per- cation running on wired and wireless (news - alert) SwitchMonitor is formance and availability of their VoIP networks. designed to monitor the performance environments and to detect VoIP

76 INTERNET TELEPHONY® May 2006 Subscribe FREE online at http://www.itmag.com Go To Table of Contents | Go To Ad Index security threats on a real-time basis. network. With real-time expert analysis the latest developments to objectively The NetIQ VoIP Security Solution also and decoding capabilities, you can evaluate and assure the quality of com- correlates security events and logs determine if converged networks are pressed voice and wideband audio sig- them for audit purposes and for per- delivering the toll-quality voice services nals, based on modeling the human forming analysis and forensics. their users demand. ear. With OPERA engineers can achieve The NetIQ VoIP Security Solution a comprehensive analysis of the end- comprises: to-end quality of today’s and next gen- • AppManager for Cisco IP Network Instruments eration networks, such as VoIP, VoDSL, Telephony (Security option) — Observer 11 VoATM, ISDN, GSM, POTS, from the Monitors a VoIP environment in real- http://www.networkinstruments.com caller to the callee. time to detect security events and con- For the test engineer, one of the figuration changes Network Instruments, LLC, (news - issues is how to apply a computer • AppManager Call Data Analysis — alert) recently announced the release of model of the human ear to a test cir- Analyzes call detail records to identify Observer 11. This version includes cuit, or to a live network environment. abuse patterns and provides complete many robust capabilities for network For this reason, OPTICOM developed reports based on the records professionals to optimize network avail- OPERA as an open, easy to configure • Security Manager for IP Telephony ability, efficiency, and performance. hardware platform that can process — Applies correlation rules to security Observer 11 encompasses enterprise- perceptual models, which are imple- events to identify threats and logs strength Voice over IP analysis, a mented just by software. The basis of security event information for auditing unique time-based interface for exam- the OPERA system is a portable ‘lunch and forensic purposes. ining up to eight TB of data, and the box’ type of PC host system. Four slots ability to pinpoint transaction delay can take various kinds of interfaces. through up to 10 conversation hops. Alternatively, OPERA is now also avail- Network General Observer 11 is also a multi-topology, able in a rack-mountable form factor. Sniffer VoIP Intelligence distributed analyzer written as a native For R&D and lab applications, a cost http://www.networkgeneral.com 64-bit application, while also including effective software-only version with a version for 32-bit operating systems. reduced functionality is offered, as well. (news - alert) As more and more Observer 11 includes significant VoIP advancements. The VoIP Expert now companies switch from traditional Psytechnics telephony to VoIP, QoS is of paramount offers aggregate statistics for overall importance in deploying and managing VoIP traffic, call summary, and quality PSI this mission-critical communications scoring, as well as over 20 detailed http://www.psytechnics.com technology. VoIP QoS is affected by a per-call metrics including call status, number of network design and opera- current jitter, call setup, duration, tear- PSI (Psytechnics Speech IP Monitor) tions factors, including packet loss and down, MOS/R-factor, and QoS prioriti- (news - alert) monitors the IP bearer of delays, available bandwidth, WAN pro- zation. As with all Observer features, live customer calls in a VoIP network. It tocols and the presence of echo. the VoIP Expert is based on the produces a highly accurate quality Sniffer VoIP Intelligence is a busi- Network Instruments Distributed score based on the ITU Mean Opinion ness solution that delivers expert net- Network Analysis (NI-DNA) architec- Score (MOS) scale P.800.1, which is work analysis, troubleshooting, and ture, meaning VoIP analysis is available representative of customers’ percep- monitoring capabilities to this increas- across multiple topologies (LAN, WAN, tions of quality. PSI also provides a ingly important element of the enter- gigabit, 802.11a/b/g), throughout the complete range of diagnostic informa- prise communications infrastructure. Observer product line, and for local and tion to help quickly identify and rectify Sniffer VoIP Intelligence leverages and remote segments. problems and improve efficiency. extends the underlying functionality of PSI can be integrated into network the Sniffer platform solutions, management equipment, test equip- Opticom ment, VoIP devices, network infrastruc- InfiniStream and Sniffer Distributed, or OPERA Sniffer Portable, to ensure QoS on ture, and handsets. It can be imple- http://www.opticom.de packet voice networks, enhancing the mented anywhere within the VoIP net- quality of converged networks at every work to monitor traffic and provide (news - alert) The OPERA level and optimizing the management real-time quality scores. Voice/Audio Quality Analyzer represents of voice, video and data over a single In addition to monitoring and

Subscribe FREE online at http://www.itmag.com INTERNET TELEPHONY® May 2006 77 Go To Table of Contents | Go To Ad Index improving overall speech quality levels, tem addresses the many challenges of Scientific NetIP Communications has PSI provides a meaningful metric for massive deployment of VoIP technolo- taken a position to bring only those use in Service Level Agreements gies and services and the monitoring of products, services, and technologies (SLAs) Analysis of VoIP performance is voice quality. Service providers, ILECs that provide customers with a clear essential to ensure the consistent level and cable/MSOs are facing a period of return on investment, improve the of service required by service mass adoption and usage of these service assurance, guarantee quality of providers. technologies, with little means of moni- service, effectively managing remote toring the services provided. resources, improving application per- RADCOM’s Omni-Q VoIP testing, formance, reduce communications Qovia VoIP analysis, and VoIP monitoring costs, and improve the customer’s Monitoring and solution gives service providers, ILECs competitive edge. Management Solutions and cable/MSOs complete visibility into http://www.qovia.com the VoIP service running over the network, enabling early stage fault detec- Shunra tion, pre-emptive maintenance and Qovia (news - alert) is a provider of Shunra VE IP telephony monitoring and manage- optimization, and drill-down trou- http://www.shunra.com ment solutions to ensure VoIP call bleshooting that leads to quick and quality. Qovia monitors live calls in easy fault resolution. Shunra Software Ltd., (news - alert) real-time and alerts IT operators before For the VoIP domain, the Omni-Q recently announced version 4.0 of its call quality is affected, enhancing relia- offers a set of non-intrusive, live traf- Shunra Virtual Enterprise (Shunra VE) bility and end user experience. Qovia fic probes coupled with active/intru- solution. Shunra VE simulates any pro- can help track VoIP assets on the net- sive ones, covering next-generation duction network environment in a pre- work, optimize VoIP networks before VoIP technologies such as SIP, RTP production setting. This latest version calls are made and troubleshoot call and H323, as well as legacy voice of Shunra VE is focused on delivering quality problems, increasing user satis- technologies such as POTS, ISDN and detailed service level compliance analy- faction, increased reliability for VoIP SS7. sis that enables users to make network traffic, and lower operational informed “go/no-go” application rollout and maintenance costs. decisions, assess and validate alterna- Qovia’s flagship IP telephony moni- Scientific Net IP tive solutions or technologies, and toring and management system moni- Communications determine which modifications are tors and manages VoIP call quality. VoIP Test Tools needed to improve performance and Qovia sensors are placed on the VoIP http://www.scientificnetip.com/ ensure service level compliance — network to collect call quality informa- voiptesttools.html before deployment. tion about calls as they occur. New capabilities delivered by Shunra Information is sent to the Qovia Service Scientific NetIP Communications, VE 4.0 include the ability to automati- Manager software center for analysis (news - alert) was established to bring cally profile and predict performance and management across the entire to large enterprises, corporations, car- compliance with service level objectives voice network. riers and service providers the fore- (SLOs) before deploying new or modi- Qovia IP telephony monitoring and most innovative technologies such as fied applications or infrastructure into management solutions support the VoIP, MPLS, Wireless, IP Applications, the production environment. Shunra VE leading VoIP software and hardware Conferencing, and Instant Messaging. 4.0 also includes powerful reporting environments: Scientific Devices has for the past 20 and analysis, advanced network simu- • Qovia for Cisco years provided test solutions to carri- lation capabilities, and enhanced end- • Qovia E911 for Nortel ers, service providers, manufacturers, user automation. • Qovia for NEC and corporations. Many leading manufacturers have called upon Scientific NetIP Communications to represent RADCOM them as their manufacturer’s represen- Spirent Communications Omni-Q tative. Abacus 5000 ICG3 http://www.radcom.com With the growing demand in the http://www.spirentcom.com industry for migrating most applica- RADCOM’s quality management sys- tions and services over IP networking, Spirent’s (news - alert) Abacus 5000

78 INTERNET TELEPHONY® May 2006 Subscribe FREE online at http://www.itmag.com Go To Table of Contents | Go To Ad Index is a cost-effective, flexible, and scalable in order to store and report millions of presence and severity of a problem at IP telephony test system, with integrat- records without the need for expensive the physical layer, improving fault find- ed analog, TDM, and Ethernet inter- hardware or licenses. VX runs on ing and error recovery. faces for comprehensive testing of con- MySQL or MS SQL Server. verged IP Telephony network elements. VXTracker connects to a PBX via an The Abacus 5000 ICG3 subsystem RS232 serial port or TCP/IP port. Telchemy SMDR data is sent from the PBX into simulates VoIP calling functionality. The the VXTracker where the raw data is VQmon/EP ICG3 subsystem provides one port with transformed into call records, which http://www.telchemy.com dual media Gigabit Ethernet and are then immediately available for 10/100/1000Base-T Ethernet for gener- reporting. For remote sites you can use (news - alert) Specifically designed ating and terminating IP Telephony sig- the Ethernet buffers, which will immediately publish the data to the host PC. for integration into VoIP endpoints naling and media traffic. During WAN downtime the device such as media gateways, IP phones, When performing call generation, the stores the data and forwards to the traditional TDM gateways and hybrid ICG3 subsystem simulates multiple IP host application when the network is IP/TDM systems, VQmon/EP monitors telephones and/or gateways generating back online. voice calls and produces call quality the call signaling and delivering the sig- estimates that can be reported as MOS naling and/or media traffic to a system Tektronix scores and R factors through the media under test. path using RTCP XR (RFC 3611), end The ICG3 subsystem executes end- WVR7100/WVR6100 of call signaling or SNMP. VQmon/EP is point registration requests, which http://www.tek.com small (6–30kbytes) and highly efficient allows measuring the capacity of (<500 instructions per second) servers. ICG3 subsystem’s IP Tektronix, Inc., (news - alert) recently VQmon/EP detects packet loss and Telephony capabilities, combined with unveiled new capabilities for the suc- jitter buffer discard events, extracts key the PCG3’s and TCG3’s TDM, XCG3’s cessful WVR7100 and WVR6100 information from DSP software and and ECG3’s analog features, provide a Rasterizers, including Eye pattern dis- produces call quality scores and diag- truly integrated VoIP/TDM/Analog plat- play, jitter measurements, and cable nostic data. VQmon/EP has been inte- form to test converged IP Telephony length measurement for High grated with products from Audiocodes, Networks. Definition-Serial Digital Interface (HD- Global IP Sound, and Texas SDI) and Standard Definition-Serial Instruments. Other leading DSP soft- Digital Interface (SD-SDI) signals, to ware vendors work closely with SyncVoice meet the needs of broadcast, produc- Telchemy to ensure that integration of VXTracker tion and post-production applications. VQmon with CODEC and Jitter Buffer http://www.syncvoice.com Also included is support for monitoring software is seamless. ancillary data that conforms to the VQmon generates listening and con- (news - alert) VXTracker is based on Association of Radio and Broadcast versational quality MOS scores and R a completely Web-based Enterprise (ARIB) standards used in Japan. factors and a wide range of diagnostic Java Application server. Once engaged, The transition to digital broadcast data, making these available through an the VX integrates with a company’s technologies has created new business API as raw metrics, RTCP XR and SIP PBXs, keyset systems, routers, and challenges and requirements for video QoS Report payloads. VQmon is based VoIP gateways to monitor performance and audio monitoring, increasing the on the ITU E Model with many exten- and provide clean understandable need for tools that quickly verify the sions to improve accuracy under time reports. quality of digital signals. With compos- varying network conditions, wideband VXTracker is made from Sun ite, SD and HD video and/or analog, codecs, orthogonal impairments and Microsystem’s Enterprise Java and is digital, Dolby Digital and Dolby E audio, signal related parameters. designed from the ground up using a the WVR7100 and WVR6100 provide three-tiered architecture. This design cost effective and easy-to-use monitor- makes VXTracker a stable, scalable, ing that ensure production and broad- Touchstone Technologies and high-performance system. VX runs cast of quality content that adheres to WinEyeQ version 1.5.0 inside a J2EE compliant server utilizing legal broadcast specifications. The http://www.touchstone-inc.com EJB transactional integrity to guarantee addition of new Eye pattern and jitter proper handling of massive amounts of measurements on the WVR7100 and WinEyeQ version 1.5.0 brings a data. VXTracker utilizes an SQL server WVR6100 provide quick insight to the unique new picture of the relationship

Subscribe FREE online at http://www.itmag.com INTERNET TELEPHONY® May 2006 79 Go To Table of Contents | Go To Ad Index of Voice and Video over IP traffic to quickly and efficiently with none of VoIP call. other data components of the network the pauses and boot-up delays of • Easy, centralized management from in true, “Triple-Play” fashion. WinEyeQ other field analyzers. The 860 DSPi anywhere through remote control of provides support for popular VoIP and puts in a full workday, with a battery intelligent, distributed agents with a data protocols (HTTP, SMTP, POP3, life up to three times as long as other customizable dashboard, enhanced reporting and capacity planning to opti- FTP, RTSP, SNMP, 802.1Q VLan), field analyzers The standard 860 DSPi is ready to mize provisioning of bandwidth and affording a clear, concise, and intuitive resources. portrait of all of the components your measure latency, jitter, packet loss, and network. other VoIP parameters in seconds. WinEyeQ now incorporates Data Analyze VoIP performance from the subscriber to the CMTA and test the WildPackets Scopes as a core component of the connection from end -to-end. The 860 Omni representation of your network. Data DSPi displays separate test results for http://www.wildpackets.com Scopes are graphical representations of To and From paths and even calculates logical groups of components, allowing an MOS score for each path the user to “drill-down” on any catego- WildPackets’ (news - alert) Omni is ry revealing ever-finer levels of details. a distributed network analysis plat- Each Data Scope can be represented as form for optimizing network services Viola Networks and maximizing uptime on enterprise either a Bar or a Pie chart and includes NetAlly Lifecycle Manager histograms for every metric, allowing networks. Omni gives network engi- http://www.violanetworks.com you to examine the recent history of neers real-time visibility into every any and all activities on the network. part of the network — including Viola Networks (news - alert) offers These data scopes enhance the user Gigabit, 10/100, 802.11 wireless, a fully integrated and centrally man- experience by providing a natural inter- VoIP, and WAN links to remote aged solution for the management of face to network analysis techniques. offices. Using Omni’s centralized con- VoIP networks called NetAlly Lifecycle WinEyeQ provides both monitoring and sole, distributed engines, and expert Manager. The solution enables com- analysis in a seamless, intuitive fash- analysis, engineers can rapidly trou- plete management of VoIP across a ion. This duality makes WinEyeQ the bleshoot faults and fix problems, converged voice and data network in technology of choice for your complete restoring essential services and maxi- full support of each stage of the VoIP lifecycle verification requirements. mizing network uptime. lifecycle — readiness assessment, Omni enables network engineers to: service deployment, operational sup- • Accelerate troubleshooting and port and capacity planning. NetAlly’s Trilithic maximize network uptime across the extensive and integrated capabilities entire enterprise, including remote 860 DSPi include: offices http://www.trilithic.com/ • Active testing that enables pre- • Gain real-time visibility into any broadband_instruments deployment assessment and ensures part of the network from a central loca- VoIP network-readiness through verifi- tion (news - alert) The modem-equipped cation of QoS configurations; identifica- • Respond more rapidly and effec- 860 DSPi cable analyzer provides all of tion of maximum call capacity and tively to end user requests the capabilities needed for certifying planning; simulation of calls with exact • Eliminate travel to other buildings analog and digital installations. A spe- reproduction through the Real-Time and campuses cial test sequence verifies VoIP per- Protocol (RTP) and setting benchmarks • Ensure that mission-critical applica- formance and calculates MOS. A for quality and performance. tions get the network bandwidth and unique function displays packets dam- • Passive monitoring that verifies availability they need aged by transient bursts capable of end-user call quality by monitoring the • Increase network performance affecting VoIP service. AutoTests make Mean Opinion Score (MOS) and polls while decreasing time and expenses for installation certification fast, sure and SNMP variables to collect health and analysis and troubleshooting automatic. performance data from network • Integrate network troubleshooting The 860 DSPi performs all of the devices. with other NOC applications and proce- critical transmission and signal quali- • Testing with patent-pending light- dures ty tests needed to install and maintain weight active algorithms that reduce • Adapt global troubleshooting capa- analog, high-speed data and VoIP the load on the network down to less bilities to new processes and applica- services. It performs these tests than 10 percent for a three minute tions as the network evolves

80 INTERNET TELEPHONY® May 2006 Subscribe FREE online at http://www.itmag.com Go To Table of Contents | Go To Ad Index 60 Seconds With… Michel Nadeau CT Labs http://www.ct-labs.com TMCnet’s Mae Kowalke recently spoke with Michel Nadeau, presi- CT Labs (news - alert) is a full service dent of Minacom, about the types of VoIP quality problems service testing and product analysis firm special- providers need to test for, and how his company’s solutions can help. izing in testing services to converged VoIP quality is sometimes used synonymously with voice quality. communications product manufacturers and next-generation network service But Nadeau pointed out that “Audio quality is only one aspect of VoIP providers. A primary goal of CT Labs is to testing, and it’s not the biggest aspect.” deliver top-quality services that fit within Minacom’s solutions focus on “service level testing,” which Nadeau the often tight timelines given to us by explained means they check for the types of problems VoIP users are their clients. likely to complain about. CT Labs is truly a service-based busi- “A lot of test equipment out there is looking at bits and bytes and ness, whose team pledges to do everything possible to meet and exceed the protocols. We are testing the services as they are used and perceived needs and scheduling deadlines of their by end-users,” he said. clients. CT Labs stays on the cutting What sorts of problems might those be? Nadeau listed presence of edge of convergence technology dial-tone, time-to-connection, two-way audio, and voice-mail/caller through its project involvement with the ID functionality as being just as important as audio quality, if not very latest products. Through this work, the CT Labs team is constantly expand- more so. ing and updating its areas of expertise. VoIP conferencing also may not work well, he said, because “some of these VoIP conferencing systems are so new that that software is Miercom not well-oiled.” http://www.miercom.com For example, variations in voice tone and pitch of conference partici- pants can cause their connection to be dropped. Miercom (news - alert) is a privately Glitches such as these are real-world problems, and can create big held network consultancy, specializing in headaches for service providers who may not have tested for user- networking and communications-related product testing and analysis. The firm’s perceived issues. highly-skilled engineers, many with over Many test equipment companies produce systems for use in lab 20 years of experience in the networking conditions, but “in a real network, you are testing services used by industry, have developed methodologies human beings that are geographically very dispersed,” Nadeau for testing products as diverse as SAN switches, SIP phones and IDS systems. pointed out. The results of VoIP, VPN testing and other “We’re really testing in a different way than a typical test manufac- technology research articles continue to turers,” he added. appear in many prestigious industry jour- Minacom’s focus is on solutions that automate the testing process. nals. In 1995 Miercom launched the That means a cable operator offering VoIP services, for example, NetWORKS As Advertised program, in doesn’t need to add an army of technicians to ensure service quality. which leading technology companies Especially for providers who have never done voice before, Nadeau submit their networking-related prod- said, the type of testing expertise built into Minacom’s solutions is ucts for a comprehensive, independent required if the revenue potential of VoIP is to be realized. assessment. Only products that meet “The whole idea of testing goes far beyond voice quality,” Nadeau stringent test requirements, including told TMCnet. product usability and performance Nadeau predicts that, in the future, companies will develop many capability, receive this recognition. The company further offers on- and kinds of IP-driven, feature-rich services, but they may not work off-site diagnostic consultation, equip- flawlessly. ment recommendation and selection, “Operators will have no other choice than to get a platform to test cabling/fiber planning and design, those services,” he said. IT installation of high-end equipment, and assistance with customized strategic Mae Kowalke is Channels Editor for TMCnet.com. network planning and direction. IT

Subscribe FREE online at http://www.itmag.com INTERNET TELEPHONY® May 2006 81 Go To Table of Contents | Go To Ad Index District Covers Four Hundred Schools with VoIP

Nevada’s Clark County School District (CCSD) is implementing one of the world’s largest IP-PBX networks, which is designed to serve more than 27,000 faculty and administrators. This sixth largest and one of the fastest growing school systems in the United States serves nearly 268,000 students in 289 schools in the fast growing Las Vegas metropolitan area.

The Challenge set across networked environments. “From a management point of view, we CCSD had several objectives, includ- Verizon has overseen the project man- can do so much more remotely; we ing providing a telephone in every class- agement and delivery of the equipment don’t always have to go out in the truck room to enhance parent-teacher com- and provided the school with onsite to fix things. We are also able to block munication and school safety. They also technical expertise. calls coming into the classroom during wanted to leverage the existing Gigabit school hours, which is a really nice fea- Ethernet wide area network (WAN) to The Result ture that we can do centrally.” reduce operational costs. Moreover, they Clark County, like many other large Reliability and management have also wanted to increase the reliability of the school districts, chose to adopt VoIP been improved by networking all network and ease administration by because it reduces telecom costs and schools and district facilities via IP standardizing on an Internet Protocol network management by combining trunking on a meshed topology with (IP)-based phone system that supported voice and data networks. By leveraging redundant paths, creating a virtual tele- digital telephony. the Gigabit Ethernet WAN, the district phone system with no single point of can save approximately $1–2 million failure. This highly reliable voice net- The Solution per year over expanding the phone sys- work incorporates multiple backups so Verizon, an Alcatel Business Partner, tem with Centrex. there is no disruption in voice services. assisted in the initial Alcatel OmniPCX “In fact, after the initial installation, Using the Alcatel OmniVista 4760 Enterprise IP phone system installations with 56 schools up and running, the dis- network management solution, CCSD’s for CCSD that will connect every class- trict dropped over 600 Centrex lines, technical team manages the VoIP net- room and administrator. The first phase saving approximately $10,000 per work in real time from a central loca- of the installation included installation month,” said Dr.Philip Brody, chief tion. This allows them to control limit- in 56 schools, with an additional two to technology officer, Clark County School ed IT resources and reduce travel time. three schools being added to the phone District, noting that, “Even though we’re Technicians now perform routine tasks network each week — making it one of tripling the number of phones, we’re sig- such as moves, adds, and changes the largest deployments of a private IP nificantly reducing the number of lines.” autonomously, instead of relying on voice network in the world. Not only does it save them money, a external service providers. The OmniPCX Enterprise offers few features quickly endeared the new CCSD the flexibility it was seeking by system to users and administrators. Why Alcatel? supporting both digital and IP tele- “The teachers really like the phones in Alcatel was chosen because an Alcatel phones and by providing a full feature the classrooms,” according to Dr. Brody. OmniPCX Enterprise hybrid solution

82 INTERNET TELEPHONY® May 2006 Subscribe FREE online at http://www.itmag.com Go To Table of Contents | Go To Ad Index The district can save approximately $1–2 million per year over expanding the phone offered CCSD operational savings, “After reviewing these proposals, it system with Centrex. which was determined by a comparative became apparent that the Alcatel ROI study by St. Louis-based Dietrich OmniPCX Enterprise was the best suit- Lockard Group. They examined five ed to provide the district with consis- possible solutions: tent management across all 300 loca- • To keep growing its existing tele- tions without expensive wiring phone system, which is a combina- upgrades,” said Dr. Brody. “Alcatel’s tion of PBX switches and key sys- dual IP/TDM architecture gives us the tems flexibility to deploy digital handsets in • A Centrex-based system schools that already possess the cabling approximately 25,000 phones. He adds • Conventional PBXs infrastructure to support digital phones, that his staff plans to implement a lot of • A pure IP system and deploy IP handsets where it makes safety features that weren’t available • A hybrid system that does both con- most sense.” before, including the panic button and ventional and IP enhanced 911, “which lets police know The last three solutions offered Future Plans where in the building you’re calling increased functionalities and reduced The Alcatel OmniPCX Enterprise’s from.” IT costs as a result of operating as a distrib- highly scalable architecture — the plan uted network over the WAN. Alcatel was to incorporate an additional; 1,500 If you are interested in purchasing reprints of this was chosen because of its capability to faculty members quickly, and then article (in either print or PDF format), please visit Reprint Management Services online at support digital and IP phones, its ability expand the system to another 97 schools http://www.reprintbuyer.com or contact a representa- to provide a full feature set over the within a decade. According to Dr. tive via e-mail at [email protected] or by WAN, and scalability to 400 sites. Brody, the district will eventually have phone at 800-290-5460.

Subscribe FREE online at http://www.itmag.com INTERNET TELEPHONY® May 2006 83 Go To Table of Contents | Go To Ad Index By Erik Linask

School System Gives VoIP Straight A’s

Mitel (news - alert) has come up with an equation that will allow school districts to subtract dollars from their communications costs while adding to students’ grades through a heavier flow of information between staff, parents, and students.

Tift County Schools, the board of To Mitel, the answer was clear: The provide our local service for both the education that serves Tifton, GA, has Mitel 3300 IP Communications VoIP PRI’s and any analog fax lines we approximately 7,500 students that Platform (ICP) with embedded standard had left in place,” said Tucker. “We now attend the its 12 schools. unified messaging, auto-attendant, auto- have a monthly BellSouth Local Service When Technology Services Director matic call distribution (ACD) and wire- bill for our two Centrex PRI’s for VoIP Harris Tucker was charged with bring- less, along with more than 200 IP and the 39 analog Centrex fax lines of ing a upgrading a failing 1988 phone phones located across the district with $2,600 per month. That’s $2,100 per system, Tucker approached Mitel, hop- convenient four-digit dialing would month in savings, or $25,200 per year. ing to hear something other than, result in considerable cost savings for Since all of these charges are E-rate eli- “Sorry, but you’re out of luck.” the school system. The 3300 ICP is a gible, beginning in July 2006 we can The existing system consisted of 14 sound investment for the future, as well, apply Tift County’s 80 percent discount disparate key systems, at a monthly cost since it is scalable up to 60,000 users. to the telecommunication charges. The of $3,848 for the 179 phone lines — “The board entered into a Local results will be a $520 per month Local the high school’s service alone cost $900 Service Agreement with a local carrier to Service or $6,240 per year. Altogether, monthly. What’s more, the service was split between two long distance carriers. In addition to cost, which clearly was a driving motivation, the functionality of the aging system left much to be desired. Transferring calls between schools was not possible with the system. An attendant was required to answer calls from both the public as well as internal staff, including other schools and the Board of Ed. There was no voicemail. There was no outgoing message capability to allow for relaying information to the public regarding hours, closings, and other various announcements. At first glance, this might have seemed like a difficult test to pass, but to Tucker’s delight, Mitel came back with a positive response.

84 INTERNET TELEPHONY® May 2006 Subscribe FREE online at http://www.itmag.com Go To Table of Contents | Go To Ad Index IP solutions put cutting edge technology in the hands of the students, teachers, and parents, enabling an enhanced learning environment and that’s $4,180 per month, or $50,160 per year savings.” increasing school safety. The cost savings, which can be labeled as significant, at the very least, will allow Tift County to recover its initial investment in less than three years, and ongoing annual savings can be used in places it is most needed — to continue to improve the students’ learning environment. The result will allow Tift County to recoup its investment in only two- and-a-half years, while the ongoing per year savings can go to where its needed most: the education of the students. Replacing old telephony lines with modern IP solutions can do more than save money for school systems. IP solutions put cutting edge technology in the hands of the students, teachers, and parents, enabling an enhanced learning environment and increasing school safety. Enhancing school safety can be as simple as a phone in every classroom, so that response times during emergen- cies can be improved through school- wide, groups of schools or district-wide broadcast messaging by phone, e-mail, and paging. School systems that have implemented a well thought out IP system have not only realized significant cost savings, but they have also achieved standards that distinguish them from neighboring communities. IT

Erik Linask is Associate Editor of INTERNET TELEPHONY. Most recently, he was Managing Editor at Global Custodian, an international securities services publication. To see more of his articles, please visit Erik Linask’s columnist page.

If you are interested in purchasing reprints of this article (in either print or PDF format), please visit Reprint Management Services online at http://www.reprintbuyer.com or contact a representative via e-mail at [email protected] or by phone at 800-290-5460.

Subscribe FREE online at http://www.itmag.com INTERNET TELEPHONY® May 2006 85 Go To Table of Contents | Go To Ad Index Marketing VoIP Services — A Whole New Ball Game By Rich Grange

Here’s the good news: There has yet to emerge a clear brand leader in business IP telephony, in any vertical or geographic market. Unlike the traditional TDM world, you will not find the equivalent of the massive, entrenched Baby Bell with significant traction in the VoIP marketplace, and — at least for right now — it’s about as why the service provider must be pre- close as you can get to a level playing field. pared to penetrate the VoIP market quickly and decisively. Facing lower And the bad news? There really isn’t providers. They do not embrace the profit margins on IP telephony services, any, other than the fact that there is no freedom, cost savings, and self-reliance these providers must understand end- proven blueprint for a service provider VoIP brings to their customers. They customer concerns, buying triggers and to follow in order to attract VoIP cus- would much prefer to have everything anticipated service adoption rates. They tomers and maintain them. related to VoIP vanish from the face of must also develop a process for a short But one thing is certain: The long the earth and return to the days of sales cycle and higher volume sales. And sales cycle and high profit margins asso- higher fees and profit margins. they must have dedicated sales reps with ciated with traditional telephony serv- Interestingly, when marketing VoIP, deep product knowledge, armed with ices are rapidly becoming a thing of the incumbents and large, independent car- the tools they need to educate their past. New market data and the realities riers use traditional sales pitches that prospects and win new business. of today’s business environment suggest focus on upfront equipment investment The following are some of the sales a completely different sales proposition and long term ROI. They avoid consul- and marketing steps that a service — one that recognizes that VoIP is not tative selling, thereby placing the onus provider can take today in order to traditional telephony. on the customer to know exactly what maximize their success when selling That’s why it has been so difficult for kind of product they are looking for. VoIP to the small and mid-sized busi- small to mid-sized businesses (SMBs) to Incredibly, their sales and product ness market. buy VoIP (define - news - alert) from teams are still organized in silos — no incumbents and for large vendors to single sales person can shepherd the Step One: Avoid focusing on ROI; gain any significant sales traction. customer to the ‘right’ product or bun- focus instead on total cost of Furthermore, the incumbents are mak- dled solution. ownership (TCO) ing the most fundamental mistakes — But just because the incumbents are Naturally, it is the potential for huge mistakes that speak to their ignorance of dropping the ball today doesn’t mean cost savings that initially attracts the the market opportunity as well as their they won’t eventually get their collective SMB customer to VoIP. But what gets failure to understand the mindset of the act together and become a real threat. them to buy is not the notion of poten- SMB customer. Besides, their ineptness with VoIP cer- tial cost savings in two or three years; For them, offering VoIP is simply a tainly doesn’t guarantee success for their they want to understand today how strategic business move to protect their smaller VoIP competitors. It does pro- VoIP reduces total system expenditures flank — a logical way to prevent the vide a real opportunity to capture pro- in a fair and credible fashion. erosion of their customer base to other gressive business customers, and that is Recent research has found a wide

86 INTERNET TELEPHONY® May 2006 Subscribe FREE online at http://www.itmag.com Go To Table of Contents | Go To Ad Index variation in TCO across a range of incumbent providers — a 120 percent Keys to Successfully Marketing difference. In order to improve the success of selling into the SMB market, VoIP Services service providers should incorporate a • Feature/Function sets are very similar — Among telecom service TCO tool (such as a spreadsheet that providers, there is little or no perceived differentiation across competitive uses current cost inputs) to demonstrate products cost savings and support marketing • It’s still tough to buy! — Incumbents’ sales forces are not well pre- claims. A successful TCO tool can be pared, and in many cases, are actually being cut back adaptable to any business target, is sim- • No one is taking a consultative, solutions-oriented portfolio approach. ple and intuitive to use and provides — Incumbents’ sales teams are organized in silos, which is highly ineffi- fair, conservative assumptions. cient for the VoIP sale Step Two: Promote feature and • TCO (not ROI) drives sales. — For the customer, economics drive the function parity with traditional purchasing decision, which is almost always based on cash flow concerns phone/key systems • The time is right to win the SMB segment. — There exists a 9–18 month window for Service Providers to win the SMB segment without Research also shows that SMBs still significant competition. think of their phones as having four primary functions: Calling, conferencing, voice mail, and intra-office call transferring. At the very least, prospects cialist, end users can easily self-config- tion. Do you work best with retail busi- must know that these four functions ure and manage their own services in nesses? Or is your specialty working will be as simple and routine as they’ve real time. with companies that have mobile or always been, and in no way will they remote workforces? Do your home- lose quality, functionality, or business Step Four: Take time to demo the work, define rational market segments responsiveness. most impressive and “cool” IP in which you can be successful, then SMBs are also far more likely to make telephony features. undertake aggressive demand genera- the switch to VoIP if the process doesn’t VoIP’s features are designed to tion with attractive value propositions involve investing in new phone equip- improve accessibility and business pro- and incentives. ment. Providing the option of keeping ductivity. Unfortunately, most SMB Service provider customers are current phone equipment while still managers don’t know anything about all increasingly aware of and interested in incorporating VoIP cost savings and these cool, new VoIP features. To VoIP for their businesses. Yet, they administrative features greatly increases impress these decision makers and influ- simply do not know where to turn for answers. Fortunately for the service the odds. Offer a converged solution or encers, demonstrate the useful and time- provider, the incumbent carriers are trunk line replacement option, other- saving features in order to capture their either ignoring or confusing them. And wise, the prospect might quickly turn imagination, letting them envision the therein lies the opportunity. But to be cold on IP telephony. possibilities for their own company. successful, service providers must act It is important not to completely now and move quickly. We estimate Step Three: Highlight the fact that, overwhelm the prospect with ALL the there is a market window of less than in some cases, VoIP is actually bells and whistles IP telephony has to one and one-half years to find and easier to use. offer — show them a few of the eye- acquire these SMB customers — before On a day-to-day basis, all phone serv- popping features, especially the ones the incumbent carriers figure out how ice is equally user-friendly. You rarely that are more useful and relevant to to do it themselves. IT even have to think about it. But when it their particular business needs. Rich Grange is president and CEO of New comes to organizing company moves, Global telecom. (news - alert)For more provisioning for new personnel and Step Five: Focus your sales efforts information, please visit the company online extensions, routing or forwarding calls, (and product features) according at http://www.ngt.com. and changing preferences, hosted VoIP to market segment. If you are interested in purchasing reprints of this is far more intuitive and user friendly. Many of today’s fastest-growing article (in either print or PDF format), please visit With VoIP, the user interface is easy- brands succeed not because they try to Reprint Management Services online at to-use point-click for simple, Web- appeal to all customers, but because http://www.reprintbuyer.com or contact a representa- based management. Instead of having they focus in on a particular market tive via e-mail at [email protected] or by to rely on a communications or IT spe- segment and demonstrate specializa- phone at 800-290-5460.

Subscribe FREE online at http://www.itmag.com INTERNET TELEPHONY® May 2006 87 Go To Table of Contents | Go To Ad Index 60 Seconds With... Brian Mahony Greg Galitzine speaks with Netcentrex’s Vice President of Marketing

Brian Mahony is Vice President of Marketing at Netcentrex. I’ve known Brian for several years, and I’ve followed the company’s rise to prominence in the Triple Play space. In fact, as I write this, it’s quite an exciting time for Netcentrex. They recently announced they were reprising their successful Triple Play Symposium, which the company introduced last year to much acclaim. I’m honored to have been invited to anchor a panel of Triple Play experts during this year’s Symposium and I look forward to helping Netcentrex with their goal of educating the world’s service providers about Triple Play and what they can hope to reap by deploying these compelling new services as well as providing a forum where these service providers could engage each other in a free flow of ideas. Brian Mahony

Interestingly enough, several hours first looked around the industry, there tant is the ability to not just reduce cus- before I sent this article to my produc- did not seem to be an executive level tomer churn, but to build true cus- tion team, the news came down that forum to learn about and contribute to tomer intimacy by providing a sub- Comverse Technology had agreed to the dialogue regarding triple play. As scriber experience that reflects the acquire Netcentrex. I asked Brian what this industry evolves, it is even more realities of consumers in today’s gadget- Netcentrex was hoping to achieve by important to learn from what has driven world. hosting another Triple Play Symposium worked well in the past and also the lat- as well as what was driving the triple est plans for profitably deploying triple GG: What is driving the adoption of play market forward. play. The Triple Play Symposium will Triple Play? provide that forum for learning and knowledge exchange. BM: Competition is really driving the GG: Please describe the Triple Play adoption of Triple Play. Cable compa- Symposium and what you hope to GG: What opportunities does Triple nies encroaching on Telcos with voice achieve by presenting this event. Play offer for service providers today? services... Telcos firing back with TelcoTV and Video on Demand... ISPs BM: The Triple Play Symposium was BM: Most service providers now under- launching Voice over Broadband... designed to bring together service stand that Triple Play (and for some, Wireless companies adding MobileTV providers for an exchange of ideas about Quad Play as well) is the key to their offerings and quad play services that best practices for deploying triple and survival. For sure, the ROI for triple integrate the home environment... quad play services. Triple and Quad play play includes reduced CAPEX and There really are no boundaries any- really are the future of the network for OPEX, and increased revenues through more. Because of this, all types of serv- all types of service providers. When we new service creation. But most impor- ice providers need to think beyond a

88 INTERNET TELEPHONY® May 2006 Subscribe FREE online at http://www.itmag.com Go To Table of Contents | Go To Ad Index single service offering, or even a specific memory, storage, and battery power. announcement with BEA for IMS- access technology (cable, FTTH, DSL, True quad play needs to take what wire- enabled applications. I suppose the wireless), and think more about the less does best — mobility applications biggest news, which will dwarf all of service bundle and how it will add — and combine that with triple play this by the time this goes to print is value to the subscriber’s way of doing services in a way that adds unique value that Netcentrex agreed, on April 10, to things. instead of only extending the range of be acquired by Comverse, a leader in the existing applications. A good exam- billing, content, and mobility applica- GG: What about wireless? ple of this is a video monitoring service tions with reach at most of the leading Do you see the addition of where you can check the status of your service providers in the world. It is the wireless technology creating a home remotely via a 3G-enabled mobile perfect match for us and will allow the Quadruple Play? phone. combined company to be a powerhouse in triple/quad play solutions for the BM: Absolutely. Wireless enables what GG: What’s new at Netcentrex? FMC and IMS markets. IT some call the Quad Play (but in fact, the three primary services are still just BM: Netcentrex has just come off our If you are interested in purchasing reprints of this voice, video, and data). It is important best year yet and continues to grow in article (in either print or PDF format), please visit Reprint Management Services online at to think about quad play as more than profitability. We have signed extensive http://www.reprintbuyer.com or contact a representa- just another access technology, however, partnerships in the triple play and tive via e-mail at [email protected] or by with limitation on bandwidth, device FMC areas, such as the recent phone at 800-290-5460.

Subscribe FREE online at http://www.itmag.com INTERNET TELEPHONY® May 2006 89 Go To Table of Contents | Go To Ad Index Coopetition: An Opportunity for Cable and Mobile Network Market Expansion

Traditional business views would lead one to conclude that mobile network operators (MNOs) and cable multiple system operators coopetition: Microsoft and Apple. (MSOs) will ultimately compete for subscriber ownership. Actually, MSOs and MNOs should ultimately if you consider that most MNOs are principally owned or con- be included in this list as their respec- trolled by the incumbent wireline carriers, they already do. But, it is tive goals to reduce churn, find and the consumers who ultimately drive service provider behavior, and realize incremental revenue streams, consumers (wireless, and cable MSO subscribers alike) prefer to cre- and optimize costs will lead them to ate and control applications when and were they want, irrespective conclude that working together is the most effective way to not only lock up of the underlying network (of which they are probably not even existing subscribers but potentially aware of its origin). Assuming consumer demand is adhered to, grow that share of the wallet spend. then, like it or not, MNOs and MSOs are going to have to develop Irrespective of the timing for IMS business models that leverage their common strengths and objec- and PacketCable 2.0 to support appli- tives. Fortunately, there is a logical alternative to what would ulti- cations and devices across networks, mately prove to be fruitless competition for subscribers: coopetition. MSOs have an immediate opportunity to add cellular service as part of their In fact, coopetition may be the only way for the MSOs and MNOs product bundle. MSOs have demon- to jointly — or individually — succeed. strated that product bundling is a very cost effective way to compete, and it is Actually, the industry is already firms producing related products (or this bundling approach that is incon- headed in the direction. The rapidly services as the case may be) should spicuously driving the first step evolving network technology land- lead to market expansion. Further towards cooperation between cable and scape, including the 3GPP’s IP multi- research suggests that a pivotal charac- mobile operators. As MSOs begin to media subsystem (IMS) SIP-based teristic of successful coopetive relation- resell cellular service, they are becom- architecture and the interrelated, ships is “a partially convergent interest ing mobile virtual network operators forthcoming PacketCable 2.0 specifica- (goal) structure,” which leads to the (MVNOs). While the joint venture tion, will not only support this reality, joint value creation (Dagnino, Battista, between Sprint Nextel and four U.S. but will also contribute to the Padula, 2002). What does this mean MSOs (Comcast, Cox, Bright House inevitable coopetition between these in the marketplace? There are examples Networks, and Time Warner) is cur- two network operators. In their 1996 of successful coopetive relationships rently the most visible example in the landmark management book, Co- across multiple sectors and industries cable sector, most domestically operat- Opetition, where game theory is including automobile (Volkswagen and ing MNOs offer the wholesale net- applied to business strategy, Adam Porsche), oil (Chevron and BP), work access necessary to support an Brandenburger and Barry Nalebuff Internet (AOL and Google), and in MVNO approach. From a subscriber suggest that the appropriate mix of technology, one of the most notorious, perspective, the MSO is offering the cooperation and competition between successful relationships based on “quad play,” and the expanded bundle

90 INTERNET TELEPHONY® May 2006 Subscribe FREE online at http://www.itmag.com Go To Table of Contents | Go To Ad Index By Mike Pastor

Net2Phone MNE Conceptual Network Design reinforces the MSO brand and customer relationship, further reducing churn (four products are more sticky than three). It also provides the MSO with the one product that their wireline competitors have been able to leverage to differentiate themselves from the MSOs in the past: wireless service. The threat of cannibalization has not impeded the MNOs from wholesaling their networks, for two very important reasons: 1. The MNOs still retain key differ- entiators, such as wholesale access to all applications and content, and 2. The MNOs have not yet fully committed to support network mobility as part of the wholesale MVNO deals. Furthermore, MNOs can offer “free nights and

Subscribe FREE online at http://www.itmag.com INTERNET TELEPHONY® May 2006 91 Go To Table of Contents | Go To Ad Index The threat of cannibalization has not impeded the MNOs from weekends” and mobile-to-mobile tion and in greater market expansion minutes as competitive, appealing opportunities, as suggested by the wholesaling their marketing offers, allowing the coopetition concept. But beyond the networks. MNOs to remain distinctive. theoretical analysis, there are substan- tive, aligned commercial interests to For an MSO to replicate these mar- drive the coopetive relationship keting offers, they will incur whole- including churn reduction and the sale variable costs to terminate “nights ‘Halo Effect.’ to conclude that the voice ‘Halo and weekends” and mobile-to-mobile Effect’ could easily apply to an MSO- minutes. Despite this, MVNO whole- Churn Reduction and the branded cellular product, and as such, sale deals are proliferating and MSOs Halo Effect a four-product bundle could poten- will begin deploying bundled cellular Bresnan Communications, a mid- tially reduce churn by more than the service in stages over the next 12 sized domestic cable operator spanning 40 percent currently experienced by months. about 550,000 homes across Colorado, Bresnan. What does this mean for the sub- Montana, Utah, and Wyoming, has As cellular penetration rates reach sat- scriber? As the MSO and MNO stated publicly that they experience 40 uration, MNOs need to find ways to coopetive model develops, subscribers percent lower churn from subscribers acquire subscribers from competitive gains the ability to access and control that also take their voice product. wireless providers, as well as reduce their applications via multiple devices both Equally noteworthy, 30 percent of own subscriber defection. In a wholesale within and outside the home. This voice subscribers are new Bresnan sub- coopetive partnership with MSOs, the capability will evolve from the initial scribers (defined as not having been a MNO benefits from the Halo Effect bundled wireless service, to integrated subscriber for preceding six months) described above, and thus the MNO applications based on Web-based with 96 percent taking at least two improves its ability to grow their market architectures, and then to presence- products and 76 percent opting for the vis-à-vis competitive, standalone cellular based applications supported via an triple play bundle. These numbers product offers. Correspondingly, any IMS architecture as the latter is support the theory that there is a mar- incremental churn reduction realized by adopted by the MNOs and MSOs keting ‘Halo Effect’ associated with the the MSO due to the bundled wireless (Figure 1). Each phase of this evolu- voice product, which leads the sub- product, results in the churn reduction tion will enable the subscriber to scriber to view the MSO brand (and for the MNO. achieve increased utility and value, by extension, other MSO products) first through bundled discounts, then with the same perceived value as the Incremental Revenue from integrated applications and ulti- voice product. As such, Bresnan, and Opportunities mately through presence-based appli- other MSOs offering voice have been In addition to the conventional cations. As this evolution occurs, the very successful upselling subscribers to bucket-of-minutes revenue generated relationship between the MSOs and bundles of products. Drawing upon through cellular subscriptions, con- MNOs should result in higher utiliza- this line of reasoning, it is reasonable sumers have indicated a willingness to pay for wireless services that can and Figure 1. will be connected to the quad play. Utilizing existing basic IP Web infrastructure, the MSO and MNO can enhance and extend subscriber control inside and outside of the home. Delivering value via subscriber control will manifest itself in applications that enable the MSO and MNO to coopetively capture incremental revenue opportunities including: personal e-mail access via the mobile handset, reviewing and managing both wireline and wireless voice mail via the TV, and DVR control via the mobile handset. In the last example, a subscriber could use the mobile phone

92 INTERNET TELEPHONY® May 2006 Subscribe FREE online at http://www.itmag.com Go To Table of Contents | Go To Ad Index interface to direct the DVR to record application whether person-to-person interests will expand their market a program when they are away from or person-to-application, including any opportunity, resulting in value creation home. combination of voice, video, and data. — and this conclusion should be com- Whether due to churn reduction, pelling enough to overcome their ini- Cost & Quality Optimization incremental revenue, or network cost tial innate reaction. It remains to be Fast forward to Phase 3 of the wire- optimization, cable and mobile net- seen whether the MSOs and MNOs less product evolution: assume that works operators have the necessary will see that, when it comes to compet- affordable dual-mode handsets (i.e., “convergent goal structure” to justify ing for wireless subscribers, their col- WiFi and cellular capable) are widely pursuing a cooperative partnership. lective whole is greater then the sum of available, and that both cable and The likelihood that this paradigm will their individual parts. IT mobile network operators have incor- materialize between the cable and porated fundamental IMS principles mobile carriers hinges on their joint Mike Pastor is president, Net2Phone Cable into their respective networks, which and respective willingness to share the Telephony LLC. (news - alert) For more information please visit the com- allow for presence detection. In a subscriber. Conceptually, this goes pany online at coopetive relationship, the MSO and against their normal instinct to main- http://www.net2phone.com/cable. MNO would agree on program logic to tain control of the subscriber at all originate and terminate voice minutes costs. But the concept of coopetition If you are interested in purchasing reprints of this over whichever network maintains the suggests that the MSOs and MNOs article (in either print or PDF format), please visit best “signal level,” or QoS while opti- will need to break free from traditional Reprint Management Services online at mizing the network cost structure. This thinking. A closer analysis should lead http://www.reprintbuyer.com or contact a representa- same logic applies to any presence them to conclude that their convergent tive via e-mail at [email protected] or by phone at 800-290-5460.

Subscribe FREE online at http://www.itmag.com INTERNET TELEPHONY® May 2006 93 Go To Table of Contents | Go To Ad Index The Enterprise VoIP Wars: The Hackers Strike Back

Have you ever heard the expression, “closing the blast-shield doors after the Tonton is out?” You’ll have to get into Star Wars mode Traditional phones. These are a few of the huge variety of devices used in a with me here, but just go with it because this expression, unfortu- typical enterprise VoIP deployment. nately, describes security efforts in today’s converged enterprise. Therefore, a number of physical ele- Because hackers use every means necessary to exploit network vul- ments must be present. A suitable nerabilities, it is the responsibility of enterprise IT to be one step phone used by an end user to make a ahead, not one step behind. Since IP telephony brings with it a new call, software that runs on a dedicated layer of vulnerability to the network, traditional network security is server platform and offers the functionality of call control and call signal- no longer an effective way to protect the network. ing, a gateway device that connects the IP network and the carrier network, To begin with, VoIP (define - news - control of the user’s ISP, making them and multi-point control units for alert) has a very different architecture an easy target to intercept. An attacker optional elements such as conferenc- than traditional TDM-based PBXs; it can compromise a VoIP gateway, exploit ing, all must be in place to optimize uses some of the same components as the vulnerabilities of a vendor’s SIP pro- the VoIP network. TDM as well as the architectural under- tocol implementation, or hijack calls Having each of these elements on top pinnings of a traditional IP network, through TCP hijacking or application of the implementation of various secu- and these differences can result in signif- manipulation. rity measures can wreak havoc on the icant security issues if not implemented Understanding and mitigating the secu- Quality of Service (QoS), a factor cru- correctly. rity risks associated with a VoIP network cial to the operation of a VoIP network. are becoming increasingly more impor- Complications can be caused by any- “You must unlearn what you have tant in today’s communications arena. An thing from a firewall delaying or block- learned...” IP telephony deployment presents a vari- ing call setup to encryption-produced For networks that use VoIP technology, ety of threats from different networking latency and jitter. And because of per- they must protect both voice and data. layers, as well as from different areas in formance restraints placed on many Many administrators assume that, since the network. It is important for IT per- networks, most security measures digitized voice travels in IP packets and sonnel to understand the various threats implemented in traditional data net- that their IP network is already secure and how to mitigate each one. But first, works are not specific to a VoIP envi- for transmitting traditional data traffic, one needs to understand VoIP — specifi- ronment. Not to mention the compli- they merely need to plug the VoIP com- cally the devices, protocols, and configu- cations that can arise from the VoIP ponents into their IP networks and rations of typical VoIP deployments. protocol selected. these calls will remain safe. However, packets sent from a user’s computer may “VoIP building blocks ain’t exactly “I sense something... a presence...” pass through anywhere from 15 to 20 Legos, Kid.” There are a number of VoIP-specific different systems that are not under the PC-based softphones. IP phones. attacks that can be performed at the

94 INTERNET TELEPHONY® May 2006 Subscribe FREE online at http://www.itmag.com Go To Table of Contents | Go To Ad Index By Bob Decker

application level in order to disrupt or involved and end the call. The attacker bilities from being exploited. Until manipulate service, which means any- also can spoof a SIP response, which then, it is highly likely attacks will one could secretly be acting as a third indicates to the caller that the called come from the application level as wheel and eavesdropping on your call. party has moved to a rogue SIP address, attackers become more knowledgeable All an attacker needs is access to the and hijack the call. The same attacker about the technology and will gain VoIP LAN to “eavesdrop” the network could even impersonate a valid user/IP easier access to test the infrastructure as traffic and decipher the voice conversa- phone and use the VoIP network to it becomes more prevalent. tions. A simple tool called VOMIT make free long distance phone calls. Fortunately, there are several proactive (Voice Over Misconfigured Internet techniques that exist in order to combat Telephones) can be downloaded to “It is time you learned the ways the numerous risks of attack associated easily perform this attack. Worse yet, of the Force...” with IP telephony. One course of action the attacker may even be able to con- Since VoIP is not a stagnant technol- is to develop the appropriate IP network duct a man-in-the-middle attack and ogy and will continue to evolve it is architecture, separating the voice and modify the original communication. crucial that the network administrators data on logically different networks via Still worse is that by spoofing his or understand there are a number of vul- VPN or tagging technology. If it is pos- her identity, a savvy attacker can cause a nerabilities yet to be discovered. As sible, different subnets with separate denial of service in SIP-based VoIP net- VoIP continues to evolve, it will address blocks should be used for data works by sending a “CANCEL” or become even more important to pre- and voice traffic. Separate DHCP “BYE” message to either of the parties vent these as yet undiscovered vulnera- servers should also be used for each in

Subscribe FREE online at http://www.itmag.com INTERNET TELEPHONY® May 2006 95 Go To Table of Contents | Go To Ad Index VoIP devices are particularly vulnerable to attacks due to the very nature of their order to simplify the incorporation of Star Wars reference again, these devices intrusion detection. Strong authentica- have effectively left the blast doors open default configuration. tion and access control should be used and the network is vulnerable to at the voice gateway, which interfaces Imperial attack. with the PSTN or other traditional However, the default configuration is voice networks. Perhaps the key to cre- not the only aspect of a VoIP device ating a secure IP telephony network is that makes it vulnerable. The Simple many more points that connect with a strong authentication of VoIP endpoints Network Management Protocol LAN and therefore must be configured and all IP telephony components (SNMP) services offered by these in your overall security plan. You don’t through access control mechanisms and devices may also be vulnerable to recon- want to give unauthorized users the policy enforcement. naissance attacks or buffer overflows. In opportunity to hack into existing phone Using a static firewall, as is the case a pretty diabolical process, an attacker conversations, which is exactly what will with most traditional data networks, simply exploits a VoIP device that peri- happen if an attacker possesses physical will not work in a VoIP environment odically downloads a configuration file access to your LAN and there is no because the protocols make processing from a server through Trivial File encryption in place. Thus, physical con- VoIP traffic more complicated. To Transfer Protocol (TFTP) or other trols are extremely important in an IP address this problem in the VoIP envi- mechanism. The attacker then diverts or telephony environment. However, even ronment, a separate add-on to the fire- spoofs this connection, tricking the with encryption in place, an attacker wall should be put in place to offload device into downloading a malicious could still perform traffic analysis if he VoIP traffic from the main firewall. This configuration file instead. or she gains physical access to VoIP process is recommended particularly in servers and gateways. So, that too needs environments with a high volume of “I sense a tremor in the Force...” to be taken into consideration when VoIP traffic. Because components of “Fuzzing,” or functional protocol test- designing a proactive defense strategy. H.323 call signaling may not be sup- ing, is a technique for finding vulnera- Today, given the volatile nature of an ported, the benefits of stateful packet bilities within the VoIP network. IT environment, you should already filters that can track the state of connec- Fuzzing works by creating many differ- have a security policy in place. However, tions and deny packets that are not part ent types of packets that contain data before enterprises make the transition to of a properly originated call may not be that pushes that protocol’s specifications IP telephony, they must again perform a completely realized. Furthermore, if to the point of breaking them. The thorough periodic assessment to assure TLS is used to protect SIP signaling, packets are then sent to an application, themselves they are conforming to the stateful packet filters may not work. hardware device, or operating system defined policies, procedures, and guide- IPsec or Secure Shell (SSH) ought to be capable of processing that particular lines for securing the IT infrastructure. used for any remote management func- protocol. The results are monitored for This extends to assessing the overall tions. any abnormal behavior including quality of the IP network and can deter- crashes or irregular resource consump- mine if it is strong enough to handle the “Great weakness do I sense in your tion. In a short amount of time, fuzzing increased security risk that IP telephony configuration...” has already led to an array of denial of brings. Even after the implementation is VoIP devices are particularly vulnera- service and buffer overflow vulnerability complete, network assessments should ble to attacks due to the very nature of discoveries in vendor implementations be completed periodically to monitor their default configuration. Typically, of IP telephony products that use network security, adherence to security VoIP devices are defaulted to a mixture H.323 and SIP. Of course, this is just a policy, and network performance. of exposed TCP and UDP ports. When process to test these protocols and Given that every IP network and the devices are put in place and begin to administrators should not rely just test- VoIP deployment has its own unique run on the network, they are open to ing alone. It is crucial that network characteristics, which specific tools and Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) administrators pay particular attention techniques will prove to be the best to prevent security issues that threaten IP attacks, problems with buffer overflows, to how they are using the technology telephony only can be discovered over and weak passwords — all of which within their networks, before, during, time. IT may result in a compromised VoIP and after implementation. device. What’s more, if the administrator wants to manage the device remotely A New Hope Bob Decker is Director, Managed and and place the device on a Web server, Yes, traditional telephone lines can be Professional Services Sales Overlay, NextiraOne. (news - alert) For more infor- that particular device opens the network monitored when physical access is mation, please visit the company online at up for even more trouble. Using our obtained; but in most offices, there are http://www.nextiraone.com. 96 INTERNET TELEPHONY® May 2006 Subscribe FREE online at http://www.itmag.com Go To Table of Contents | Go To Ad Index

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There has been a lot of buzz surrounding the productivity gains that softphones can deliver. Yet most of the people I speak to still prefer The Softphone As A Service to use a hard phone over a softphone. Over the last few years, those The majority of calls you make dur- enterprise softphones now available on the market have been ing the work day involve reading a telephone number from a computer screen designed to mimic the functionality available on standard office and then physically punching the num- phones. Designers have even gone so far as to make their softphones ber into your phone keypad. That’s an actually look like traditional desk phones: BIG, BLACK, and inefficient way of working! CLUNKY. Just mimicking the hard phone is not enough to realize You might argue that “my new $500 true productivity gains. Softphones, along with the underlying com- color screen VoIP phone has a built-in munications architecture, should be built to be leveraged as services browser!” OK, so with the 12 DTMF (Dual Tone Multi-Frequency) buttons in an enterprise architecture. and the left/right/up/down arrow on that phone, try to navigate to your While incumbent vendors have put which has arguably made the task favorite Web site, select the ‘contact us’ thought into how best to transport the harder. People are not quite as dexterous option, highlight a telephone number bits that make up the phone call, with a mouse as they are with their and hit the call button. Is this how you they’ve done little to change the phone fingers. really want to use your phone? There is and phone call paradigm itself. Softphones are little more than pic- simply not enough real estate on the Specifically: tures of telephones on the screen. phone screen, the browser doesn’t render Not enough thought has been put Furthermore, they completely take over the HTML correctly, and the UI but- into how employees perform their jobs your screen and application focus. tons on the phone are no match to a and the application interactions that When it rings, the softphone jumps to mouse and keyboard for gathering and take place leading up to and during a the forefront of your screen interrupting entering information. Your PC has phone call. what you are working on. This can access to all the information you use The introduction of softphones has easily cause accidental answering of a during work communications (i.e., the not improved the interaction between call followed by fumbling with a headset. Internet, enterprise applications, corpo- people and the phone system. The Because a softphone is really just a rate directories, e-mail clients, and per- process of reading a phone number off hard phone disguised as a PC applica- sonal contact lists). So, wouldn’t it make of an e-mail or Web site, and then tion, the limitations of the hard phone more sense for your softphone to inter- punching it in digit by digit into the still remain. Just as you are physically act with all these applications? phone remains the same. The only dif- tied to your black phone for the entire We are beginning to see softphones ference now is that a mouse is used to call, softphones keep you physically tied integrating with single desktop informa- punch the number into the softphone, to your PC for the entire call. tion sources used in everyday work

98 INTERNET TELEPHONY® May 2006 Subscribe FREE online at http://www.itmag.com Go To Table of Contents | Go To Ad Index By Fergal Glynn

processes from some of the larger ven- applications. Well-designed softphones an application needs to be converted dors (i.e., e-mail and CRM). In the and their underlying communication into a format that the communication future, though, it should be expected platforms will provide the interfaces that platform understands — this may end that softphones will have a standardized allow enterprises to treat voice and up being a URI or a standard telephone “point-and-click-to-dial” interface from video as Web services in an SOA number. The process of navigating to an any enterprise business application, not (Service Oriented Architecture). on-line information source to convert just desktop applications. Examples of services to be leveraged names into useable phone numbers It should be possible to initiate a call include dialing the phone, voicemail, should become the responsibility of the directly from any application without conferencing, call forward and call hold. softphone, not the user. This will needing to punch in numbers or copy Making these telephony features part of increase the power and accuracy of and paste a number. A softphone user the SOA allows applications to easily click-to-dial and, if combined with Web should be able to “point-and-click to provide talking, listening, and seeing services and an SOA, would open the dial” a URI (Uniform Resource capabilities without carrying all the bag- door for the largest directory of all — Identifier), name, number, or alpha- gage of TAPI, CTI, etc. the Internet — to be queried automati- numeric sequence. Softphones do not Dialing from applications is only as cally in everyday work communications. need to be stand-alone desktop applica- powerful as the directory sources that Imagine harnessing the power of Google tions. It should be possible to deploy a can be referenced. The arbitrary text or any enterprise data source as a direc- softphone as a portlet in enterprise Web that is highlighted and clicked-to-dial in tory for your softphone!

Subscribe FREE online at http://www.itmag.com INTERNET TELEPHONY® May 2006 99 Go To Table of Contents | Go To Ad Index Just because a call is answered on a desk phone does not mean that the called party As the number of directory sources interactions with it to be very ‘fixed.’ grows, so too will the likelihood of By that, I mean the telephone system should be tied to duplicate matches — there are a lot of forces you to remain tied to the specific that phone for the John Smiths in the world. The softphone you are on for the duration of phone should enforce rules as to how that call — whether you want to be or duration of the call. duplicates are handled. Users should be not. In the beginning, you were tied by able to configure priority schemes for the physical wire connecting the directories. In time, the softphone mouthpiece to the phone and the and help provide SIP extensibility to should be able to examine behavior pat- phone to the phone network. Today, any phone the user has added to his/her terns and make the appropriate decision cellular technology allows us to roam SIP profile. Just because a call is on how a duplicate entry is handled through the office and outside the answered on a desk phone does not (i.e., when a duplicate is returned, auto- office while on a call. But despite this mean that the called party should be matically call the person with whom flexibility, you are still tied to your cell tied to that phone for the duration of you had the most recent interaction). phone, even when it doesn’t make the call. A softphone, in conjunction Directories available to a softphone sense, such as when you are sitting next with an intelligent SIP communication should not be limited to a local direc- to your office phone. Why waste the platform, can provide enhanced porta- tory or the directory stored on the com- cell minutes? Ever had a call drop bility to break the “fixed” nature of tra- munications platform. Softphones that because cell coverage is poor in your ditional phone systems. only provide directory look-ups against office? The ‘fixed’ nature of being tied a vendor’s proprietary directory should to the device that you initiated the call Conclusion not be considered for enterprise deploy- with still remains. Today’s softphones Before widespread adoption of soft- ment. continue to keep users ‘fixed’ to the phones in the enterprise can occur, the hosting computer. If you accept an issues of usability and usefulness as a Taking Control Of The important call at 5:25pm on your soft- desk phone replacement must be Screen phone, but need to leave your office to addressed. Softphones should seamlessly Softphone designers could learn some catch the train at 5:30pm, the only integrate with and provide instant com- lessons from the usability features of option you have is to hang up momen- munication from enterprise applications new IM and e-mail applications, such as tarily and call back from your cell and directories. A softphone should also Skype and Microsoft Office 2003. phone. be viewed as a dialer and control device, There is no need for a large softphone Wouldn’t it be nice if the click-to- regardless of the phone device the user screen to appear during every piece of dial features were made available to ends up talking on. Softphones should communication. Communications employees, regardless of the device they blend in with the desktop, and should should be just another feature built into end-up talking on (desk phone, cell integrate with the interactions that take applications, like spell checking. phone, home phone, softphone…)? place with other applications. It’s not Furthermore, just like spell checking, Signaling and media are two distinct enough to just provide traditional tele- softphone communications should be parts that make up a VoIP call. There phone features in a softphone. The serv- simple to use and not demanding on is nothing that says that the signaling ices that softphones provide should be the users’ attention. Subtle notifications, and media must go to or come from available in your SOA registry for all fading dialogs, and a minimalist set of the same device. Device A can do the applications to use. Addressing these options are all that are necessary in a signaling, which may say to use Device issues will lead to a greater adoption of softphone GUI. More thought should B for the media. Furthermore, if the softphones, because of the productivity be put into how softphones will be softphone uses SIP (Session Initiation gains they will allow. IT deployed on enterprise desktops. Protocol), mid-call mechanisms can be Softphones should leverage enterprise provided that can change originating Fergal Glynn is Systems Architect at authentication systems (Radius, Active and destination locations of media BlueNote Networks. (news -alert) For more information, please visit the com- Directory), require no user configura- streams. This enables a change as to pany online at tion, and provide easy inventory track- how we interact with and view the tele- http://www.bluenotenetworks.com. ing and upgrade mechanisms. phone system. Softphones should not be limited to If you are interested in purchasing reprints of this Increasing Portability replicating the minimal set of function- article (in either print or PDF format), please visit Between Devices Reprint Management Services online at ality offered by a desk phone. They http://www.reprintbuyer.com or contact a representa- The nature of the phone system, should be able to control and manage tive via e-mail at [email protected] or by since its inception 130 years ago, forces the media device being used for a call phone at 800-290-5460.

100 INTERNET TELEPHONY® May 2006 Subscribe FREE online at http://www.itmag.com Go To Table of Contents | Go To Ad Index house ad_rev 3-13.qxp 4/11/2006 1:40 PM Page 1 VoIP and the “Myth of QoS” Dude

I have many conversations with enterprises first deploying VoIP, and when I ask if they are concerned about the performance of their voice application, I occasionally get an answer like, “No, I have QoS QoS is typically needed to solve a few in my network.” Unfortunately, the gap between that confidence potential link oversubscription or high and deployment reality is sometimes quite large, due to the fact that utilization scenarios. One is where you QoS is not a “set-and-forget” network option. It takes careful initial have an aggregation of traffic sources planning, ongoing monitoring and a precise management strategy into a single link where the link speed is lower than the sum of all the aggregated to sleep well at night. links into it. A typical example is two gigabit LANs plugged into a router that What do I mean by QoS? context — the network mechanics that has a T1 WAN interface for uplink traf- Quality of Service (QoS) is one of prioritize traffic for special treatment. fic. You can’t fit 10 pounds of stuff into high-tech marketing’s favorite words of Volumes could be written about all the a five pound sack. QoS methods like the last ten years. One of the few terms technology options available for manag- prioritization and queuing can help bal- I can think of with more usage and ing QoS today, and the fervor with ance spikes of traffic that cause oversub- meanings is “dude.” My buddy from which some support one approach ver- scription. the mail room, who happens to be an sus another, borders on religious devo- Another scenario is a mismatch of ex-southern California surfer “dude,” tion. Intserv versus diffserv, Layer 2 and data link speeds between two communi- can change dude into seven different Layer 3 QoS, call admission control, cating points in a network. A typical meanings just by slightly changing the trust boundaries; combinations of these case of this is a headquarters location way he pronounces it. Maybe QoS is techniques work well for different peo- with a T3 WAN link connecting to a not quite as utilitarian a term, but the ple in specific applications. I won’t try remote office that has a T1 WAN link. several ways it is used can be confusing to cover the specific QoS options in A chain is only as strong as its weakest if you are not already a certified “net- detail, but I will talk about a deploy- link. QoS techniques like call admission working dude.” ment and management strategy that control can ensure that that traffic vol- The term QoS is commonly mixed works regardless of the underlying QoS umes don’t exceed the allocated capacity between two concepts; 1. The measure- techniques chosen. on the slower links. ment of quality the user experiences A third scenario happens when a with a particular application (i.e., I am Is QoS necessary for VoIP low priority application is transmit- measuring the quality of service of my deployments? ting a very large packet and a high voice calls and it sounds awesome, QoS doesn’t magically create high- priority application wants to transmit. dude) and 2. The underlying mechanics quality VoIP. What it does is spread The high priority application might in the network that assure a specific the pain of a lack of bandwidth across have to wait until the large packet is application is given a priority to the network applications in the way you completed. A typical example of this resources it needs to deliver a good choose. If your network is overprovi- is sharing a converged Ethernet link quality. sioned with extra bandwidth, the need to your desktop between your IP For the purposes of this article, I am for QoS diminishes, but does not go phone and your computer sending going to talk about QoS in the second away. large e-mail attachments. The voice

102 INTERNET TELEPHONY® May 2006 Subscribe FREE online at http://www.itmag.com Go To Table of Contents | Go To Ad Index By Eric Bear

packets will make it through the IP vendor. To the best of my knowledge, tests to deduce the level of priority that phone and into the network, but the no vendor requires QoS to be enabled VoIP traffic is given over the enterprise time the VoIP packet waited to be in your network infrastructure today, network or even on service provider sent through the phone cable creates but all will highly recommend it. networks being traversed, but it should jitter on the packet. Fragmentation During your VoIP assessment, you be augmented by a level of granular and interleaving of the large packets should not only load test the network management visibility to be compre- and VoIP packets will minimize this to verify VoIP calls can be carried with hensive. jitter. the desired quality, but if QoS is The output of an assessment is a clear enabled, you should test to make sure understanding of the VoIP traffic load Plan Your Network that VoIP and VoIP signaling are that can be supported by the network Deployment given the priority that you expect. and an identification of any issues that To begin, before you deploy VoIP This test of QoS priority can be per- need to be corrected. on your data network you should performed roughly by generating synthetic form a predeployment assessment. VoIP traffic over your network with Determine the Baseline Most VoIP equipment vendors and QoS tagging enabled on the synthetic The predeployment assessment some service providers require this be traffic and then rerunning the test with might turn up network problems that done today, and some have even the QoS tagging turned off and com- need to be corrected before the VoIP developed specific procedures so that paring the results. Some VoIP manage- equipment is installed. These issues your network is “certified” by that ment vendors also have very specific might include duplex mismatches, link

Subscribe FREE online at http://www.itmag.com INTERNET TELEPHONY® May 2006 103 Go To Table of Contents | Go To Ad Index capacities, or configuring QoS within Rise Of IP Networks Demands the network. When these issues are corrected and Industry Innovation — the new VoIP equipment is installed, it’s time to take a snapshot. Not a picture Not Industry Consolidation of all the victorious networking dudes involved around a celebratory beer keg, By Jean-Luc Valente but a baseline test of your network. As stated earlier, VoIP is a real-time, ongo- The network performance management market has seen much change ing initiative, it’s not plug-and-play. brought on by acquisitions in the last year with IBM, CA, and EMC purchas- This baseline will ensure that the VoIP ing Micromuse, Concord Communications, and SMARTS, respectively. network works as expected and also Contrary to some rumblings in the industry, this flurry of consolidation does gives you a benchmark to compare back not mean the future of network management lies with large vendors whose to as you move forward into the opera- capabilities span multiple areas. With a new technology like IP telephony, ventional stage. dors must constantly innovate, remain nimble, and be able to adapt to rapidly To perform the baseline test, the changing products and services. Independent, specialized vendors are better management system needs to generate equipped to quickly react to market shifts and drive innovation through their the maximum VoIP traffic load planned depth of expertise, proximity to customer demands and pain points, and free- for and verified in the predeployment dom from the constraints of legacy technology and integration issues. assessment. It is important that the syn- Today’s network plays a much more critical role, supporting myriad IP serv- thetic traffic type matches the actual ices like IP telephony and messaging that are linked to strategic business func- traffic exactly so that it gets the same tions. The complexity of managing these IP services stems from the fact that network treatment. Some management they are cross-silo and span applications, system components, and core net- vendors will use echoed UDP or ICMP work resources. Their mission-critical nature means that addressing problems traffic to simulate a VoIP call. This after they occur is too late. In such an environment, IT managers need predic- technique will allow for testing without tive and proactive performance management that detects potential problems software agents in the network, but and triggers early warning alarms to preempt issues before they affect the end- does not guarantee that the tests are user, which demands an automated, top-down performance management per- handled by QoS queues, firewalls, and spective. Since the service level is only as good as the weakest link in the chain, other network elements in the same a holistic view of services and resources with access to granular detail is critical manner. to accurately assessing and mitigating risk. Proactive performance management involves aggregating critical data about Monitor on an all network devices and using it for baselining, trending, and capacity plan- Ongoing Basis ning. It leverages existing tools and processes, allowing for integration with Networks are not static. New VoIP other management systems to solve end-to-end service level issues. Proactive and data users are added, new sites are performance management also enables reporting from the service and device added, users find new applications on levels so that IT managers can correlate business metrics to IT performance a regular basis. These changes can and determine which problems to address first. This ability to link services to cause network problems, which result the underlying IT infrastructure provides faster problem resolution, enabling in poor application performance, user IT managers to identify where the problem resides and what user applications complaints or lost revenue. QoS, if are being affected. configured properly, will make sure There are four key reasons why large vendors are not able to meet the chal- that the lower priority traffic is pun- lenges of managing today’s IP networks. ished first. It is important to put in place a • Reliance on fault management solutions that fail to address the requirement for monitoring and management strategy a predictive and proactive approach. that keeps a watchful eye on the oper- Large vendors have typically relied on a fault management view of the infra- ating network. Slight degradations in structure, which looks at network performance from a black and white per- call quality can be caught before the spective, giving only a real-time view of operations, and emphasizing trou- problem becomes serious and users bleshooting capabilities over more proactive services like preemptive perform- complain or revenue is lost. The man- ance alerting, capacity planning, and trending. Many alerts inherent in fault agement system should be able to not only notify that there is a problem, but

104 INTERNET TELEPHONY® May 2006 Subscribe FREE online at http://www.itmag.com Go To Table of Contents | Go To Ad Index management have no impact on the business and inherently address problems it must be able to help troubleshoot, after the fact, when service degradation has already occurred. For delay-sensi- diagnose, and suggest reasons for the tive applications, like voice, it is imperative to anticipate issues in order to problem. assure the quality of the end user experience. Vendors that combine real-time reporting with historical analysis enable customers to predict and address server Make Adjustments to and network problems before end user productivity and quality of experience is QoS as Needed affected. Changing network conditions certainly require changes to QoS policies. • Service providers and enterprises today are demanding end-to-end service man- Some of the basic QoS configurations agement, which requires a flexible and adaptive architecture. can remain static, like IP phone traffic End-to-end service management provides a thorough understanding of the will always be treated at the same QoS underlying system and the related performance metrics without which you level and large low priority data pack- cannot manage the quality of that service against end-user expectations. This ets will be fragmented into smaller entails monitoring and managing all relevant infrastructure technologies to packets. However, many of the origi- track quality of service and capacity and is impossible without several key func- nal assumptions made when QoS was tions: A unified view of the network; the ability to collect data from any source first deployed, such as the percentage in a multi-vendor and multi-technology environment; performance measure- of bandwidth on each link dedicated ment of devices and applications against key performance indicators; and easily to each priority traffic type, will defi- accessible business-relevant IT service performance information. Large vendors nitely need to be continuously with legacy product architectures typically have difficulty adapting to and sup- reassessed. porting new and complex multi-vendor environments to provide end-to-end To be truly effective, the management service management. system needs to draw on a combination of passive “real world” monitoring and • Integration issues tie up resources and put large vendors behind the curve. active synthetic testing data to under- Large vendors that frequently acquire new products are faced with the per- stand fully and proactively when issues petual challenge of integrating a mix of different technologies into their exist- are occurring, and have the capability to ing framework. For companies like IBM, CA, or HP, with so many offerings, diagnose the problem quickly. the risk of a suboptimal solution that results from poor integration is very real. It is a burden that is ultimately felt by the customer and drives implementation Summary failures, high costs, slower time to value and low tangible return. QoS is necessary for almost all VoIP deployments in some form. Because IP • Large vendors cannot harness innovation to the greatest benefit of their cus- networks are very dynamic, QoS is tomers. not a “set and forget” solution to your Large vendors cannot innovate quickly enough to harness the potential of VoIP application working. Ongoing new technologies, needing to attain critical mass before putting the latest tech- monitoring and management is a nology into their products. Specialized vendors can take advantage of new necessity before VoIP is even capabilities and cater to early adopters, keeping them on the leading edge of deployed. Networks and network traf- technology and innovation. fic loads change, so QoS needs to change too. The organic market cycle will continue to see larger vendors acquiring niche Good luck with your VoIP deploy- players, particularly as IP network adoption evolves and the demand for con- ment, dude! IT verged networks increases. However, the true market leaders will not be determined by size but by the ability to innovate and stay ahead of their customers’ Eric Bear is vice president of product management and business development at demands. IT Viola Networks. (news - alert) For more information, please visit the company Jean-Luc Valente is Senior Vice President, Global Marketing and Strategic Alliances at online at http://www.violanetworks.com. InfoVista. (news - alert) For more information, please visit the company online at http://www.infovista.com. If you are interested in purchasing reprints of this If you are interested in purchasing reprints of this article (in either print or PDF format), please visit article (in either print or PDF format), please visit Reprint Management Services online at http://www.reprintbuyer.com or contact a representative via e- Reprint Management Services online at mail at [email protected] or by phone at 800-290-5460. http://www.reprintbuyer.com or contact a representative via e-mail at [email protected] or by phone at 800-290-5460.

Subscribe FREE online at http://www.itmag.com INTERNET TELEPHONY® May 2006 105 Go To Table of Contents | Go To Ad Index Implementing the New PoEPlus Standard

While many users took advantage of the cost-effective benefits of Power over Ethernet (PoE), 12.95W maximum of ‘af’ is not enough Ethernet cable, allowing for greater flex- power to serve all the applications and implementations. The IEEE ibility in office design, higher efficiency 802.3at task force was formed to create an improved Power over in systems design, and faster turnaround time in set-up and implementation. Ethernet standard, building on the original IEEE 802.3af specifica- To date, the most pervasive applications. Designated PoEPlus, it will more than double the wattage tions have been wireless access points available to powered devices, delivering up to 30W of power and and IP phones, for which PoE provides possibly even 45W. If accepted as a new IEEE standard, PoEPlus a single cable connection as well as a will allow increased power to many more devices, enhancing their single point of backup for a UPS in case capabilities, such as those used for wireless multi-radio access points, of power failure. Some applications, however, require Pan Tilt Zoom security cameras, streaming video, VoIP, (define - significantly more power, and the origi- news - alert) and IP security applications. nal IEEE802.3af specification limits the user to 350mA due to cable and patch The most recent focus of the task equipment (PSE) of 51–57V with panel limitations of Category 5 wiring force’s debate has centered on whether a 650mA on Category 5 or better wire. systems. This was done as a safety pre- two-pair solution is feasible, or if a four- The drop per pair total in the worst case caution, even though several demonstra- pair solution will be necessary in provid- scenario of 100m cable and connectors tions showed drawing up to 750mA was ing enough power for high power appli- is 12.5ohms. This will provide at least possible with no safety hazard. Since cations such as multi-band access points 30W at the power device with a voltage that original specification was written, and controllable security cameras. The range of 40–57. While these values are Category 5e and 6 cabling systems have greatest concern is rising temperatures not final and still subject to additional become more common. in the cabling which can cause perma- thermal dissipation work being conduct- While manufacturers have been able nent deformity and eventual data degra- ed by IEEE’s cabling working group, to develop proprietary PoE products dation. what makes the two-pair solution both that meet the growing demand for At the task force’s January 12th meet- viable and preferable? higher power, users would prefer that ing, a proposal was approved stating the all products meet a single interoperable group’s objectives can most likely be met Why is PoE being standard that provides for those high without having to resort to four-pair implemented? power applications specifically. powering, and that the members would PoE technology offers an innovative focus on developing two-pair solutions, solution to systems designers in elimi- Why High Power? which are lower in cost and easier to nating the need for local power outlets The current IEEE802.3 standard only implement when compared to the alter- or in getting power to a device without allows for power up to 12.95W to be native. The current proposal is to use a calling an electrician. PoE allows power used by a powered device (PD). Because source voltage from the power sourcing and data to be carried over a single of the significant advantages of imple-

106 INTERNET TELEPHONY® May 2006 Subscribe FREE online at http://www.itmag.com Go To Table of Contents | Go To Ad Index By Keith Hopwood Defining specifications for higher power will allow a whole new group of menting PoE, many users would like to when current runs through them. This make the switch but require even higher testing does not reflect a safety concern applications to take power. For example, several manufactur- or a fire hazard, but the cables can per- advantage of PoE. ers of VoIP phones have been adding manently deform above certain temper- features such as large color screens capa- atures, causing data attenuation. It is ble of providing streaming video (which anticipated that the Cat 5e and 6 wire is greatly benefit from the use of PoE) typ- going to be rated for 760mA per con- need to detect if one of the connections ically require 24W and the new broad- ductor. The real problem is not the cur- is broken, otherwise all the current is band wireless access points designed to rent but the temperature rise in a build- draw down the one path. All of these meet IEEE802.3N and support A/B/G ing conduit with a worst case of all the issues can be solved but add the com- standards require up to 25W. conductors delivering high power. plexity of cost. Today several manufacturers are deliv- The cable is rated for 60° C. Actually, ering proprietary systems that are deliv- the problem is not a fire hazard but that Practical Power Possibilities ering PoE from 30W up to 75W. The the cables become soft above 60°C and Although there are several examples of IEEE802.3at working group is in the data properties degrade permanently. systems that are delivering up to 75W process of re-defining a standard to The ongoing testing will verify tempera- safely and reliably over the Ethernet for increase the power and provide full ture rise and practical limits. The con- individual applications, the standard interoperability. Defining specifications clusion is still pending test reports, but that will cover a general application will for higher power will allow a whole new for the lowest drops for the same cur- need to set lower limits. From the work group of applications to take advantage rent it seems it would favor a four-pair done so far, it is conservative to say that of PoE. system. two-pair systems can deliver up to 30 The real issue is going to be the watts over existing cable infrastructure Four-Pair Versus Two-Pair hotspot temperatures at the center of and 60 watts for four-pair. Voltage The current standard delivers the bundled cables. In addition, some sig- delivered from the source will be 50- power over two pairs of the Ethernet nificant analysis of the connectors has 57V with current of 600mA. cable. To increase the power capability been done and it appears from initial you can either increase the power deliv- results that the connectors are capable of What will the standard be? ered by two pairs, use all four pairs of handling over 420mA per conductor An IEEE802.3at working group has the cable, or both. The constraining without degradation. decided to support a two-pair medium issues restricting how much power you power standard and four-pair high can deliver on the cable are safety con- Complexity for Four-Pair power solution. The specification will still take some time to complete but the cerns and the cable system itself. Systems direction and objectives are clear. The It is common, in some countries, for task force has formed three adhoc Safety installations to use one cable to distrib- groups, each comprised of leaders in the The safety issues are pretty straight- ute two 10/100 ports. This is obviously power implementation field, to define forward. The IEC 60950 safety standard not suitable for four-pair powering and voltage limits, advanced classification for information technology limits volt- adds a level of idiot-proof detection and a management interface base. The age and power for any electrical circuit before allowing pair power. To ensure groups will work to develop a pragmatic that a user can touch to 60Vdc maxi- power is not applied to wires that are standard and ensure that their products, mum and 100VA. This would mean the not designed to receive it, the new sys- as well as those manufactured through- maximum limits would be 100Watts tems need to detect if the four-pairs are out the industry, comply to the standard delivered from the source. With practi- connected to the same source. as soon as it is released. IT cal system and cable drops this would Another issue with the four-pairs that Keith Hopwood is vice president of sales give the PD approximately 75 watts. adds an additional level of complexity is and marketing at Phihong USA. (news - This is enough power to run most lap- the requirement to share the current alert) For more information, please visit tops and LCD displays up to 17”. between multiple conductors. Even if http://www.phihong.com. you add current sharing, it is essential to Cable System Limits current share in all conductors, espe- If you are interested in purchasing reprints of this The task force’s cabling working cially as they are generally all derived article (in either print or PDF format), please visit group is currently testing the viability of from the same power supply. Due to Reprint Management Services online at the two-pair solution, testing 196 cables differences in impedances, especially http://www.reprintbuyer.com or contact a representa- bundled in a conduit and measuring the with short cables, all the current may go tive via e-mail at [email protected] or by phone at 800-290-5460. temperature rise in all the conductors down one path. Connected to this you

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Market Through Education with TMC’s Webinars

What are TMC Webinars? What does TMC Provide? Complete turn-key events. TMC handles the promotion Pre-event marketing: Advertisements—Web and and registration, and sets up the technology. print, customized registration page and customized E-mails. Hour-long, web-based topical seminars with live During event: A moderator from TMC, along with an streaming audio and video. industry expert and your company’s executive, will speak. Webinars are interactive: Moderators ask and answer Post-event: Receive all registration information and a questions, fully engaging with attendees. follow-up e-mail to registrants.

TMC will provide a turn-key Webinar for your company. A partnership with TMC gives you the edge you need to create an event that will generate sales leads for your products and services.

Quality Lead Generation | Reach Key Decision Makers | Increase Product Awareness | Position Company as Leader in Field | Turn-key Marketing Program © 2005 Technology Marketing Corporation. All Rights Reserved.

Subscribe FREE online at http://www.itmag.com INTERNET TELEPHONY® May 2006 111 Go To Table of Contents | Go To Ad Index ADVERTISING INDEX Advertiser/ Page Advertiser/ Page Advertiser/ Page Advertiser/ Page Web Address Number Web Address Number Web Address Number Web Address Number

ABP International ...... 61 Esna Technologies ...... 39 Linksys...... 5 SipStorm Inc...... 3 http://www.abptech.com http://www.esnatech.com http://www.linksys.com http://www.sipstorm.com

Aculab ...... 110 GL Communications ...... 32, 110 Minacom ...... 73 SVA Networks ...... 111 http://www.aculab.com http://www.gl.com http://www.minacom.com http://www.svanetus.com

AdTran ...... Cover 3 GlobalComm 2006 ...... 97 NEC Corporation ...... Cover 2 Target Distributing ...... 37 http://www.adtran.com http://www.globalcom.2006.com http://www.necunified.com http://www.targetd.com

Allworx...... 56-57 GlobalNet ...... 31 NetIQ...... 43 Triple Play Symposium ...... 49 http://www.allworx.com http://www.gbne.net http://www.netiq.com http://www.tmcnet.com/voip/ conference/triple-play-06 Cantata Technology...... 11 GlobalTouch Telecom.....23, 110 New Global Telecom ...... 21, 110 http://www.cantata.com http://www.globaltouchtelecom.com http://www.ngt.com U4EA Technologies ...... 110 http://www.u4eatech.com Collaborative Technologies Government Customer Pangean Technologies ...... 47 VegaStream...... 110 Conference...... 109 Support Conference ...... 93 http://www.pangeantech.com http://www.ctcevents.com http://www.hthts.com/gcs http://www.vegastream.com Pingtel Corp...... 110 VoIP Demo...... 65 CommuniTech Services...... 25 Intel ...... 14-15, 18-19 http://www.pingtel.com http://www.communitechservices.com http://www.intel.com http://www.voip-demo.com Polycom...... 7 VoIP Developer Conference ...63 Eicon Networks...... 41, 111 InterEdge...... 45 http://www.polycom.com http://www.eicon.com http://www.inter-edge.com http://www.voipdeveloper.com

Elma Electronics...... 53 Inter-Tel...... 59 Pronexus...... 89 VoIP Inc...... Cover 4 http://www.elma.com http://www.inter-tel.com http://www.pronexus.com http://www.voipinc.com

Emergent Networks...... 9, 110 IT EXPO West...... 101 Quintum Technologies ...... 29 Vox Communications...... 69 http://www.emergent-netsolutions.com http://www.itexpo.com http://www.quintum.com http://www.voxcorp.net

Envox ...... 67 IVR USA...... 85, 110 Samsung...... 27 Zultys Technologies ...... 13 http://www.envox.com http://www.ivrusa.com http://www.samsung.com/bcs http://www.zultys.com

112 INTERNET TELEPHONY® May 2006 Subscribe FREE online at http://www.itmag.com Go To Table of Contents

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