VOIP Products And Strategies Announced At N+I [Siemens, LU and ERICY]
By CHUCK MOOZAKIS, Thursday, May 7, 1998, 5:40 p.m. ET.
pubs.cmpnet.com
Las Vegas -- Ericsson, Lucent Technologies
and Siemens Business Communications all
rolled out VOIP products and strategies at
NetWorld+Interop, reflecting IT managers'
and carriers' demand for integrated products
and services.
Despite continued debate about how effective
voice over IP (VOIP) may ultimately be as an
alternative to the public switched telephone
network, Claude Romans, a senior analyst at
Ryan Hankin Kent Inc., said IT managers and
carriers can't afford to overlook the possible
cost-savings and efficiencies. "They are
looking at all their options to make their
operations more efficient," he said.
To that end, both Siemens and Lucent detailed
broad strategies, releasing products and
unveiling future enhancements designed to
mesh existing enterprise infrastructure with
VOIP equipment and related services.
Ericsson, meanwhile, is targeting carriers with
its Internet Telephony Solution for Carriers
(IPTC) platform, using Delta 3's international
network as a medium for worldwide IP traffic.
Siemens detailed four of the 11 VOIP
modules in its "Extranet Network of the
Future" strategy. The four modules, available
later this summer, support intranet toll bypass,
global IP teleworking, remote access and a
multimedia IP-LAN device.
"We see packet voice as a revolutionary
force," said John Rasmus, Siemens' senior
director of IP telephony solutions. "It won't
happen overnight, but it will impact all product
lines."
Beyond the four modules, Siemens also will
develop products supporting enterprise ISP
services, Web-based network management
and IP call centers. The goal, Rasmus said, is
to provide corporate extranet IP telephony,
enabling companies to tie together various
intranets into a single pipe and retain security
over transmissions.
"It's time to look into advanced services via
IP," Rasmus said. "Nobody has pulled that
together." Siemens is pricing the toll bypass
product at $25,000 per site; pricing for the
other modules will be disclosed later this
spring.
Even as Siemens begins to flesh out its VOIP
product line, Lucent continued to expand on
its existing IP products. Lucent is using an
application-centric approach, preferring to let
software developments drive hardware
performance, according to Bryan Katz,
general manager, media call servers.
With that in mind, Lucent released
improvements to its MultiMedia
Communications Exchange Server (MMCX)
and its Internet Telephony Server.
MMCX 2.1 now supports multiparty media
conferencing to additional network
connections, including ATM, wireless LANs
and H.320 and H.325-compliant endpoints. In
addition, the device also will support
PC-to-phone services.
Internet Telephony Server 2.0 added
additional management capabilities, giving
ISPs the ability to create zones to manage
multiple gateways. The management module,
dubbed service access manager (SAM), can
support up to 25 gateways and 500 PC clients
per SAM.
The enhancements support IP communications
applications, including messaging and
distributed workgroups, thus letting multiple
users collaborate on various projects, such as
virtual whiteboards and teleconferencing.
At the same time, Lucent is devising ways to
mesh applications servers so they work
together as well, thus breaking down the walls
between application-specific servers, said
Kathleen Meier, Lucent's general manager,
Internet communications. "Putting everything
on application-specific servers doesn't work,"
she said. "The goal is to break down
monolithic servers so they all work well
together."
MMCX 2.1 is priced at $18,500 for a starter
kit, and supporting from four to 100
concurrent log-ins and up to 500 users. Client
software is free. Internet Telephony Server
2.0 pricing depends upon configuration.
Although Siemens and Lucent focus on
enterprise and carrier products, Ericsson is
pinning its VOIP products around carriers,
said Staffan Lindholm, general manager of
Ericsson's Internet program. The vendor's
Internet Telephony Solution for Carriers
platform is now in the process of being
launched with Delta Three, an Internet
telephony supplier that provides VOIP
services to more than 20 countries worldwide.
IPTC has three software components:
gateways; sitekeeper, which routes traffic
through the gateways; and netkeeper, which
provides administration and management
control through Web browsers. The package,
priced at $1,300 per port, also will be
marketed to other carriers.
For More N+I stories |
