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Technology Stocks : Voice-on-the-net (VON), VoIP, Internet (IP) Telephony -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: BuzzVA who wrote (651)	5/29/1998 2:11:00 PM
From: Kenneth E. Phillipps	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 3178

A gradual convergence Voice vendors trail in race to merge voice, data By Pankaj Chowdhry, PC Week Labs 05.25.98 The worlds of voice and data are converging, and so is the hardware that controls them. One of the hottest areas of contention in the VoIP (voice over IP) race is the branch-office market. At the SuperComm trade show in Atlanta in two weeks, VoIP products are expected to garner a significant share of the spotlight. The economics of branch-office VoIP calls are compelling--they're almost free. However, reliable voice over the Internet isn't yet possible, so vendors are targeting managed intranets, which already connect data services in branch offices to a central office. Leading the charge are Cisco Systems Inc., which dominates the data networking arena, and Lucent Technologies Inc., a titan in the voice world. Cisco's 2600 series router, which shipped in March, lets four analog calls be multiplexed with traditional data for transport to a central office. Bay Networks Inc. in the summer will release a voice-enabled Advanced Remote Node router, also supporting four analog lines. PC Week Labs has seen the voice quality of products in this category improve dramatically. Voice compressed to 8K bps has become almost indistinguishable from traditional phone calls. However, this quality can only be sustained on a tightly managed network. Network managers looking to implement branch-office VoIP should examine their WANs and determine if traffic patterns would interfere with the stringent requirements for VoIP. Lucent has pushed into the branch-office area with its AnyMedia call center and its Message Care call management system. These systems integrate incoming calls and e-mail via the Internet into a traditional call center. Other voice players have been noticeably absent from the VoIP arena. This is due to a number of factors, including limited technology and lack of sales channels. Data vendors have a major advantage in that they must modify only a small portion of a system: They simply convert voice to data, then deal with it as usual. The voice portion of a network becomes just another port into the network. For voice vendors, gearing up for VoIP is another matter entirely. The voice portion of the new network is very small: Quality of service, routing and integration are all done in the data world. However, voice vendors are concentrating on their strong suits--PBXes and call centers--and should not be counted out. Rockwell International Corp. and Siemens Corp. have partnered with Netspeak Corp. and now offer many of the same services as Lucent. Startups such as eFusion Inc. are also carving out a niche. We have used eFusion's eBridge Interactive Web Response System to link a Web site to a call center, offering instant gratification to Web surfers needing more information. (For a review of eBridge, see PC Week, April 6, Page 85.) Such high-end call centers need high-density platforms for call entry. Again, data vendors with adaptable architectures are rushing in with solutions. Cisco's AS5300, Bay's Gateway 4000, 3Com Corp.'s Total Control and Ascend Communications Inc.'s MAX 4000 all rely on digital carrier lines. Digital T-1 or E-1 lines allow densities beginning at 24 lines and scaling up. Bay's Gateway 4000 bridge between the public telephone network and intranet, which began shipping this month for $1,500 per port, is the first product of Bay's partnership with Netspeak. 3Com, building on its HyperDSP platforms, has rolled VoIP into its Total Control and Superstack lines. Cisco has tapped its Mica modem technology to upgrade AS5200s and AS5300s for VoIP. However, most enterprises needn't worry about devices with these types of densities and instead can opt to outsource these services to an Internet service provider. The hardware to support these services is readily available, but protocol services are not. SS7 is only now being integrated into remote access equipment; support for QSIG, the protocol used by PBXes, is almost nonexistent. Send E-mail to PC Week \| Copyright notice