I receive a magazine called soundingboardmag.com. Tracking the movement of Voice, Fax, and Video onto packet Networks. I will be pasting a couple articles that mention 3COM in them.
3Com Looks to Voice over IP
Transport, Mediation
By Paula Bernier3Com Corp.
(www.3com.com) is expanding its Internet
protocol (IP) telephony strategy to allow its
boxes to work in tandem with Class 4 circuit
switches. Also at the Voice on the Net (VON)
conference, the company announced it is
building a device to mediate between all the
various call control standards.
According to Houman Modarres, director of
product management for Internet Telephony
Carrier Systems, 3Com divides its voice over
IP (VoIP) market into two pieces--retail and
transparent trunking solutions. The initial
interest in VoIP has been in retail services
such as prepaid calling. 3Com thinks that is
viable, but is not likely to be a major source
of revenue for the carrier market, Modarres
says. One reason is because clearinghouses
have not evolved to be widely used yet, so IP
telephony service providers only can offer the
service to and from a limited number of
locations.
However, he says, any provider offering long
distance can push a 3Com IP telephony
gateway against its Class 4 long distance
switch, allowing it to eliminate its inner ring
of tandem switches, offer low-cost long
distance service and, most importantly,
provide a service for which customers don't
have to change their calling behavior (vs. a
prepaid calling card service in which they'd
have to dial a 1-800 number and personal
identification number before making a call).
And that, Modarres says, allows carriers to
use existing revenue to pay for
next-generation infrastructure.
In other 3Com news, the company is building
a mediation device to allow gateways using
H.323, media gateway control protocol
(MGCP), session initiation protocol (SIP)
and/or any other popular call control option
that comes along to interoperate. Modarres
declined to provide a delivery date for the
mediator. |
