Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Technology Stocks : Ascend Communications (ASND) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Glenn D. Rudolph who wrote (41519)	3/30/1998 8:50:00 AM
From: Marcel	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 61433

Ascend, Cisco to Unveil Voice-Over-IP Products (03/29/98; 9:05 a.m. EST) By Matthew Friedman, InternetWeek It used to be IP meant data. But that's not the case anymore. As the definition of IP networking expands to include telephony, videoconferencing and technologies yet to be developed, IT managers are feeling the heat to keep up. "I'm under tremendous pressure," said Robert Morton, director of WAN operations at Productivity Point International, a technology-training firm. "There are always new technologies and services, and management wants to squeeze as much functionality out of our network hardware without mortgaging the family farm to do it." For IT managers like Morton, purchasing decisions are increasingly based on how they can maximize their existing equipment into the future. And it's a future that probably includes IP telephony. With that in mind, both Ascend and Cisco are getting ready to release new voice-over-IP products. Ascend will announce on Monday it is jumping into the IP telephony market with its MultiVoice strategy. The company plans to roll out a series of products offering telephony over IP, frame relay and ATM networks with an enhanced IP Navigator that promises "absolute" quality of service. Its MAX 6000 access concentrator, to be unveiled at the same time, does double duty as an IP telephony gateway. "IP telephony is very much an access technology, and the truth is that a voice gateway is really a concentrator," said Roger Boyce, vice president and general manager of Ascend's enterprise access division. A key part of Ascend's strategy is to offer an upgrade path to users of the MAX 4000 concentrator. By making the MultiVoice for MAX gateway available as a card for the older units, Ascend's existing customer base will be able to deploy voice over IP without replacing network hardware, said Boyce. "Any gradual upgrade is going to be attractive to users," said Brendan Hannigan, an analyst at Forrester Research. "It's not just a question of dropping in a card -- it never is, of course. There are quality and reliability issues as well. But for the service provider market, this is very interesting. It lets them leverage what they already have." Cisco is taking a somewhat different approach. Its 2600 series routers are targeted at a different market, but follow the same modular philosophy. "[The 2600] takes the same modules as the 3600 and 1600 routers," said Don Proctor, Cisco's 2600 product line manager. "What we've done is introduced the same modularity you find in the 3600 in the lower end, and that will allow you to add functionality, like voice-enabling the network, at branch offices." With Cisco's voice/fax network modules designed for the 3600, the 2600 can integrate telephone traffic from remote sites in the head office's PBX, said Proctor. It's a prospect that has Productivity's Morton excited. "I wouldn't say it was the main reason we purchased the 2600," he said. "But it gives us the opportunity to integrate voice and video without having to invest in a lot of additional equipment. We have a lot of satellite offices, and it makes sense to route voice over our WAN, so it's something we're looking at very aggressively." Nevertheless, Forrester's Hannigan expects widespread adoption of IP telephony in the enterprise to be a slow process, despite vendors' promises of QoS. "IT managers are excited because it really is a great idea," he said. "But it has to work all the time. No one's going to risk their jobs over IP telephony if it doesn't work all the time. And we're not there yet." Search Archives All CMP Publications TechWeb News