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October 23, 2001 11:53 AM
Intel readies multimedia processors
By Stephen Lee
IN YET ANOTHER hopeful sign for the VoIP (voice over IP) market, Intel announced the availability of its new PBX Digital Gateway at the Intel TechSummit in Los Angeles on Tuesday. The company also revealed that it would make a voice portal announcement in conjunction with Compaq.
The Digital Gateway is aimed at helping enterprises migrate to VoIP. It lets enterprises deploy IP telephony services over their legacy telecommunications gear by acting as a bridge between existing telephony infrastructure and IP services. In this way, the device extends the functionality of existing PBX environments.
Currently, Intel supports PBXs from Nortel (the Meridian 1), Avaya (the Definity G3), and Mitel (the SX-200 and SX-2000).
Users will be able to develop IP services and port them to other platforms, such as Intel's Converged Communications Platform, for which several applications already exist, including unified messaging, CRM, and contact center solutions.
"You can host several content-rich applications, all peacefully coexisting with the functionality of an existing PBX," said Sandra Rivera of Intel's telecommunications and embedded group.
Also at the TechSummit, Intel will detail its support for Compaq's new voice portal, which will give users access to the Internet through voice inputs and will be based on Intel technology, according to Rivera. The solution will be distributed by Catalyst Telecom of Greenville, S.C., and Miamisburg, Ohio-based Total Tech.
Finally, Intel plans to announce a set of control processor boards based on CompactPCI specifications, which comply with the PCI Industrial Computer Manufacturers' Group (PICMG) 2.16 standard for packet switching backplanes.
The new boards, designed as "building blocks" for developers, have been designed to help developers bring IP services to market faster than would be possible with raw silicon. That strategy could be particularly attractive to ISVs, who traditionally "want as much of the integration done for them," Rivera said.
The boards will provide support for greater bandwidth, processing density, and multiserver management needs, enabling developers to create highly reliable IP applications such as voice processing, voice recognition, and conferencing, officials said.
"We see these as the first control processor boards for many of the media server solutions that customers want to bring to the market," Rivera said, adding that contact center, unified messaging, interactive voice response, and 3G (third-generation) wireless solutions top the list of customer demands.
Rivera further noted that the IP telephony revolution is in full swing, but also said that the market may take time to fully develop.
"It's far from mature," she said. "There's definitely an evolution to packet-based voice, but there are also high expectations for voice quality, quality of service, and latency issues. Some of those are addressed in higher-performing silicon, but some of those issues are system architecture issues. We see it as a multiyear investment in an overall evolution strategy. We're going to live in a hybrid world for a long time."
Moving forward, Intel will focus on solutions that offer higher density, higher reliability, and greater maintainability, along with carrier-grade OS middleware, Rivera said. |
