Vendors Hear Voice Technology's Call -- As voice and data further converge, vendors vie for resellers and customers
By Shawn Willett, May 25, 1998, TechWeb News
techweb.com
Voice-whether via IP, Ethernet, ATM, Frame Relay or proprietary
transport-literally was everywhere at the Networld+Interop show in Las
Vegas earlier this month.
Executives from traditional computer data infrastructure vendors discussed in
detail their approach to this converged market. Traditional telecom vendors
explained how their data services would evolve into voice-over-IP in due
time. Convergence also means Internet service providers (ISPs) will go after
telcos' traditional core businesses, such as fax transmission, said John
Sidgmore, chief executive of Uunet Technologies Inc.
In fact, by 2003, the Internet will represent more than 90 percent of all the
world's bandwidth; one year later, IP will represent almost 100 percent of all
the bandwidth in the world, Sidgmore said. "The old order of telecoms is
being overturned," he said.
When it happens, convergence undoubtedly will be a huge market. But
analysts and even vendors said the infrastructure is still at least a year away
from happening. Now, however, is the time for VARs to prepare, they said.
"It's important for [the channel] to learn voice as a new technology for them
to sell to their traditional customers," said Mike Volpi, vice president of
business development at Cisco Systems Inc., San Jose, Calif. Integrating
voice-over-IP is Cisco's No. 1 priority, he said.
To prove this point, the company snapped up a Quality of Service (QoS)
company that could help in its drive to integrate voice, video and other
content onto an IP network. Cisco paid $50 million in stock for Class Data
Systems, which has offices in Ra'anana, Israel, and Cupertino, Calif.
Class Data writes software that assigns priorities to different kinds of traffic,
including traffic related to a certain application, user, device or even time of
day.
Cisco will first use Class Data's software to enable Cisco internetworking
devices to assess traffic priorities for mission-critical applications, said
Jayshree Ullal, vice president of marketing for the enterprise networking
group at Cisco. The company then plans to use it for video and voice
applications.
Such QoS software is deemed crucial for making voice and data work on a
network because it guarantees a level of audio quality users now expect from
telephone companies.
Cisco is not alone. In his keynote address, 3Com Corp. President and Chief
Executive Eric Benhamou demonstrated how the Santa Clara-based
developer plans to sell networking gear to the $1 trillion
voice-communications worldwide market.
As an example of convergence, in his keynote, Benhamou demonstrated an
E-mail message where the user responds in a voice and video message by
simply clicking on an icon on the desktop.
"The experience of the network is greatly enhanced when instead of having
plain data, you have a converged network," Benhamou said.
Specialized networks with their own "purpose-built" infrastructure likely
would emerge in many cases because they can do the job better than the
Wintel IP platform, said Benhamou. "Trying to force uniformity of platforms
will lead to increased costs of ownership. . . . One size does not fit all," he
said.
Cabletron Systems Inc. showed a series of plug-in modules for its
SmartSwitch 9000, 6000, 2000 and 1800 routers/switches that act as a
gateway that packetize voice and sends it on as an Ethernet network. The
products come from the Rochester, N.H.-based company's partnership with
NetPhone Inc., Marlboro, Mass.
Voice-over-IP/Ethernet is the long-term answer, but in the short term,
voice-over-Frame Relay could provide answers, infrastructure vendors said.
That is because of quality and other problems with Frame Relay, vendor
executives said.
Developers at the show also paid attention to ATM for voice applications.
Sphere Communications Inc., based in Lake Bluff, Ill., rolled out Sphericall
ATM PBX 2.0, which offers voice, data and video services over a private
ATM network or through a carrier-based ATM network. The system does
not need an ATM adapter on the desktop.
"You can drop in our services to an Ethernet network. . . . The ATM part is
totally in the background; no one knows it's there," said Byron Brooks, vice
president of marketing at Sphere.
Despite the abundance of hardware, when it comes to voice-over-IP,
applications are actually one step ahead of the infrastructure, analysts said.
And widespread implementation is still a long way off, they added.
"I think we are still in the early stages; the old voice stuff is proprietary but still
extremely reliable," said Robert Mirani, senior analyst at The Aberdeen
Group, Boston.
"But there is still quite a bit going on. People are replacing dedicated voice
hardware with more data-centric/software-centric products," he added.
Others had to look further ahead. Tom Nolle, president of CIMI Corp.,
Voorhees, N.J., said voice is mostly hype now. "This is going to take years,"
he said. One reason: Investments in infrastructure, since service providers
must use heavy-duty switches that route voice and data.
Murray Hill, N.J.-based Lucent Technologies Inc. was one company offering
such equipment. The developer also laid out a road map to deliver voice on
IP networks, and it plans to build up its small base of VARs to sell the
products.
"It's important for our channels to learn voice. . . . We plan to help them do it," said Susan Barbier, director of market development at Lucent.
Lucent rolled out an Internet-telephony gateway and "mixed media"
application server. The products allow telephony applications such as call
centers or conferencing. Both products still need a traditional PBX to
function.
Copyright r 1998 CMP Media Inc.
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