3Com On Path To IP Voice
October 20, 1998 INTERNETWEEK via NewsEdge Corporation :
3Com is no longer a wanna-be when it comes
to voice over IP for the enterprise.
The vendor this week will introduce
enterprise VoIP with its PathBuilder S200
Voice Access Switch, a multiprotocol device
developed in concert with Motorola's Internet
and Networking Group (ING).
The device, capable of supporting voice and
fax over both frame relay and IP, lets users
choose between either protocol. The switch
dynamically allocates bandwidth as needed
to funnel voice and data traffic over IP or
frame relay, according to James Sturgess,
3Com's business development manager for
enterprise WAN solutions.
Using that method gives customers the
option of using a more familiar platform such
as frame relay before venturing into the
untamed world of IP delivery of voice and
data, he said.
3Com will demonstrate PathBuilder in its
booth this week at NetWorld+Interop in
Atlanta.
PathBuilder, which also will be commercially
available this week, arrives as the debate
continues about the future of
voice-over-packet technologies.
Analysts agree that VoIP's future will be
robust-Probe Research Inc. predicts the
amount of voice and fax traffic over IP within
the next four years will balloon to more than
55 billion minutes from fewer than 1 billion
this year. Nonetheless, the current
landscape, especially for corporate
customers, is dominated more by vendor
pronouncements than actual volume
purchasing by users.
"In many ways, the VoIP market is one that
has not yet matured," said Peter Davidson,
president of Davidson Consulting. "For many
enterprises to make major investments in an
emerging technology such as VoIP remains a
venture. There is still a lot of wait and see."
That market diffidence, however, is exactly
what 3Com plans to capitalize on with
PathBuilder, according to 3Com's Sturgess.
"We didn't want customers to have to make
a choice over one or another," he said. "We
see a lot of companies that want to start
with voice over frame and then migrate to
IP, so this can be used as a stepping-stone."
In addition to its multiprotocol support,
PathBuilder has been designed to be
"dropped in" to a user's network with-out
requiring drastic changes to existing
infrastructure, according to Sturgess.
PathBuilder comes in two versions: the
S200LD, a four-port unit geared toward small
and branch offices; and the S200HD, a
62-port device engineered for PBX
deployments in headquarters.
Both devices handle basic voice transport
options such as G.711 pulse code modulation
and compression down to 5.3 Kbps. In
addition, the switches support enhancements
such as echo cancellation, voice activity
detection and calling features such as
alternate destination routing. And the
switches incorporate voice technology from
Motorola that lets them sustain higher-level
communications protocols such as Q.SIG and
ISDN's Primary Rate Interface signaling.
Q.SIG, for example, links separate ISDN PBXs
into a cohesive whole, which should prove
attractive to businesses eyeing VoIP.
Dynamic Delivery
The dynamic voice and data delivery
mechanism built within PathBuilder comes via
dynamic cell packet transport (DCPT), 3Com
said. In essence, when the switch detects
voice traffic, DCPT fragments data packets
to reduce the disparity between voice and
data. In this way, small voice packets aren't
delayed as they wait for much larger data
packets to be pumped through a user's
network. That's a key issue because voice is
more sensitive to delay than data.
When voice traffic is not detected, DCPT
automatically returns the data packets to
their non-fragmented state. "It's a way of
taking some of ATM's capabilities and
providing attributes such as QoS and
traffic-shaping," Sturgess said.
PathBuilder's support of both voice over
frame relay (VoFR) and VoIP, meanwhile, also
means the device can be tapped for backup
in the event of a network crash. Because IP
is a more flexible medium for backup than
frame, voice traffic can be backed up via IP
if a user's frame relay connection is broken.
PathBuilder has three additional features:
network voice switching, where call
switching takes place within the device itself
instead of a PBX; streamlined common
channel signaling, in which Q.SIG commands
can be read by PathBuilder and
communicated directly to PBXs instead of
having to rely on tunneling through network
connections; and simplified administration
support via Voice Network Server.
With Voice Network Server as a central
repository, the network can identify and
activate new users without having to add
new user data to each node already existing
on the system.
Among enterprises studying PathBuilder are
Sears Roebuck and Co., Quad/Graphics Inc.
and Columbia-St. Mary's Inc., a
Milwaukee-based regional health center.
Although all three are intrigued with the
prospect of saving money as they add voice
and fax traffic to frame relay and IP
networks, each has a decidedly different
approach.
"All of this depends on how much we get in
return for not having to use our current long
distance carrier," said Michael Jacobson, a
Sears technical consultant.
Sears is eyeing voice traffic as it begins to
implement a frame relay network linking its
more than 1,000 sites.
"If we can carve out a situation where we
have a committed information rate for voice,
then we can take the next step and add
video and provide training and get our cost
savings in those ways," Jacobson said.
Contrary to Jacobson's plans, Gary Voigt,
manager of technical and network services
at Columbia-St. Mary's, said he wants to
junk his frame relay network and switch to
dedicated T1.
By deploying VoIP within that framework,
Voigt said, cost savings and the ability to
move data and voice traffic simultaneously
will result in having to buy, use and manage
fewer T1 lines.
"We have 28 remote clinics, and I am
interested to see how we can integrate both
voice and data," he said. "There could also
be some implications as to how it can tie into
our PBX and provide extensions to those
remote sites."
Damian Drewek, Quad/Graphics' director for
voice, video and data, said he wants to test
PathBuilder to see if it can support his vision
of a "poor man's ATM," something that could
deliver voice and data with the appropriate
levels of service and management.
"Our interest is to avoid long distance
charges," he said. "We are sending some
voice now, but obviously any voice we send
sucks up data bandwidth, so people make
conventional calls instead."
PathBuilder is priced between $2,795 and
$20,000, depending upon configuration.
Copyright c 1998 CMP Media Inc. |
