The Future Premise Network, Part I

Jim Machi : Industry Insight
Jim Machi

The Future Premise Network, Part I

Two weeks ago, I presented at the US Telecom Voice Innovation 2011 Conference on the topic “The Premise Network.”   While it might not sound so interesting, the Premise Network is undergoing much change because work is not just a place to go anymore, it’s a state of mind.  The talk was mostly about the future of the premise network, but before I got to that, I needed to level set on what a typical premise enterprise network might look like.  In my estimation, “typical” means there is likely still a traditional TDM network, but only because it’s there and exists and IT doesn’t want to rip it out and remove it, and there is a VoIP network as well.  There is no doubt that on most enterprise networks, VoIP is there and is either the lead communication network overall, or major pieces of the enterprise network have been totally VoIP enabled.  This could be all “adds” to the enterprise networks occur on the VoIP networks, such as with new remote offices or with new employees.

Dialogic is a typical enterprise in this regard.  In the building where I have an office, we still have a traditional PBX, but we also have the whole building on a “Unified Communications Hub,” with some users exclusive to it.  In our case, this is Microsoft Lync.  And we have most of our remote offices exclusive to Lync, with PSTN connectivity requirements handled via the Dialogic gateways.  We do most inter-company calls, including our conference calls, using this setup. 

Interestingly enough, the concept of a call “changes” from a traditional conference call where you all sit in a conference room around a phone and stare at it.  This experience is way more interactive since desktop sharing is involved.  If you are talking about something and want to show people on the call what you mean, you can bring up your screen to show them.  Much more interactive and useful.   Or if you choose to read this another way, people are probably doing less multitasking (i.e. reading less email, or less of instant messaging someone, or less of surfing the internet) than on a typical conference call.

The "Typical" CPE Network Today

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But for many readers, this setup is pretty standard now and is in fact, pretty “old school.”  Like I said, I needed to level set.



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