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Over the last few weeks, I've spent quite a bit of time talking with a variety of partners about leveraging SIP in large enterprise deployments and specifically the architectures used to support branch offices.  When I first starting working on this problem, my original reaction was "Simple, just put in a softswitch and connect all the sites together via SIP - Done".  

It turns out it's not that easy.  From listening to our partners and their customers, I have learned there are a few real challenges they deal with when deploying communications systems into distributed branch office situations:

First you need to get good quality broadband to every one of your branch offices, which is hard to do once you leave the urban/suburban rings of most cities.  Getting voice-grade  broadband to remote offices in rural America can be very expensive and wipe out any potential cost savings.  Consumer grade broadband is easier to get, but even then not predictable enough for commercial applications.

Second is the question of reliability, which was recently demonstrated by the massive Internet outage in San Jose. What will happen to your business if the broadband connection to the site is cut?  Do you just close for the day and kiss off the revenue?

Third is network traffic optimization - does every call really need tie up your broadband service?  Is there a more efficient way to leverage the expensive and shared broadband that services the branch offices?

The solutions seems to be in an architecture that fits somewhere between the two extremes of fully centralized and fully distributed, but exactly where depends on the individual business.

To discuss these challenges and some potential solutions, I've invited Bruce Mazza, Director of Branch Office Solutions for Avaya to join me in a live webinar on Tuesday, April 14th at 2 PM.  I encourage you to Click here to register for the live event or listen to an on-demand recording of the event.

I'm very much looking forward to the upcoming Solutions Theater and iPod Give-away we are hosting at VoiceCon later this month.  As part of this series of presentations on SIP applications, we'll be joined by Bill Miller, Vice President of Product Management for Digium.  Bill brings a wealth of experience and knowledge on both IP-PBX solutions and open source to the stage.  Bill was kind enough to share with me some thoughts on his upcoming session: 

AP: Thanks again for presenting in the upcoming Solutions Theater at VoiceCon.  Can you give us a sneak peek at the topic of your presentation?

BM: My session is titled "Open Source Alternatives in a down economy"

AP: Please share with us how Digium|Asterisk and open source solutions help enterprises in this difficult economy?

BM: The business case for open source and open source based solutions is compelling for both business and technical reasons. We will explore why the momentum is not just building daily, but there are proven solutions, case studies and growing list of enterprise class solutions.

AP: How can Value Added Resellers (VARS) best leverage Digium|Asterisk?

BM: VARs are adopting alternatives to traditional telecom solutions at alarming rates. The ability to leverage experience already gained from traditional telephony solutions, the new emerging models provides new channels of revenues, new pipelines of opportunities and many alternatives to build custom telephony solutions to grow faster than the market. price conscious users want to kick the tires and understand open source today.

AP: Who would get the most out of listening to your presentation?

BM: Resellers and enterprises or all sizes

AP: Bill, where would someone learn more about your Digium Open Source solutions?

BM: The Digium booth is #1328 here at VoiceCon and our web site is www.digium.com. To learn more about the open source asterisk project, visit www.asterisk.org.

Bill's presentation is scheduled for Tuesday, March 31st at 4:00 PM EDT in booth #931 - see you there and good luck winning the iPod Touch!

 As noted in yesterday's post about VoiceCon, our opening speaker in the AudioCodes / ScanSource Solutions Theater will be Joel Maloff, Vice President of Marketing for BandTel.  BandTel is a pure SIP Trunking service provider that utilizes AudioCodes gateways to connect their services to end-customer TDM PBXs or other equipment.  Joel was kind enough to spend a few minutes with me yesterday, providing a preview of what to expect in his presentation at VoiceCon.

AP: Can you share with us the title and topic of your presentation?

JM: Sure, the title is 'SIP Trunking - Ready for Prime Time '

AP: How does SIP Trunking help enterprises in this difficult economy?

JM: SIP trunking has two immediate benefits for enterprises, especially in light of economic conditions. The first is the ability to broaden an enterprise's reach via the use of remote local telephone numbers. For example, an enterprise that is forced to consolidate and close down physical locations can retain those telephone numbers and have them ring into one or more centralized facilities. In this way, local identification is retained, operations are consolidated, and costs can be dramatically reduced. In addition, new locations can be opened throughout North America and internationally with those calls received by an enterprise call center. The second benefit is the ability to reduce reliance on dedicated telephone circuits for voice and reduce the cost of incoming and outgoing telephone calls. This includes both domestic and international. Our research indicates that savings of 25% to 70% of the annual telecommunications budget is achievable. In difficult economic times, those savings go directly to the bottom line and can be reused to the benefit of the business.

AP: How will value added resellers (VARs) benefit from reselling SIP Trunking from BandTel?

JM: BandTel offers a percentage of monthly recurring revenues brought to us for the life of the service. As long as the customer remains with BandTel, our partners will receive the benefit of their efforts.

AP: What about the BandTel strategy is different from before the economy went sour?

JM: Our strategy has not changed. We believe that businesses want to do more for their operating expenditures, and to find new ways of serving their markets. What has changed is the mindset of our customers. They are no longer content to pay high prices to traditional communications carriers without considering new and different ways to accomplish the same results for less money.

AP: Who would get the most out of attending your presentation?

JM: Anyone who is responsible for finding ways to lower communications costs without sacrificing value will find the presentation valuable. This includes information technology and telecommunications staff organizations, financial personnel responsible for scrutinizing budgets, and value-added resellers seeking an additional profit center to the benefit of their customers and clients.


AP: Where would someone learn more about your solution?

JM: BandTel's website - www.bandtel.com - offers a wealth of information including white papers, FAQs, and case studies.

Joel's presentation is scheduled in the AudioCodes / ScanSource Solutions Theater in Booth #931 at 4:00 PM EDT on Monday, March 30th.  

Want a really good shot at winning a free iPod Touch?  If you are headed to VoiceCon in Orlando later this month, you should definitely read on...

AudioCodes has joined forces with ScanSource Communications at this upcoming VoiceCon in Orlando and as part of the exhibition, we are hosting a "Solutions Theater and Pavilion" in our expanded booth #931.  We are thrilled to have pulled together 14 industry leaders that will deliver a series of presentations that focus on SIP-based applications that help end users and VARs deal with this difficult economy.  

Now for the really cool part: After each presentation, AudioCodes and ScanSource Communications is giving away an iPod Touch to one of the lucky audience members.  (Rules for the drawing will be posted in the booth)

Time	Presenter	Topic
4:00 PM	BandTel Joel Maloff Senior Vice President of Sales and Marketing	SIP Trunking
4:30 PM	CTI2 Erez Marom	Unified Communications

Time	Presenter	Topic
1:30 PM	AudioCodes Alan Percy Director, Market Development	IP Communications - An Opportunity in a Down Economy?
2:00 PM	Avaya Bruce Mazza	Branch Office Solutions
2:30 PM	The VIA Group Jeff Stillings	Microsoft Office Communicator 2007
3:00 PM	Genesys Charles Lee      Sr. Product Marketing Manager	Empowering enterprise-wide customer service
3:30 PM	Atlantic Communications Michael Light	Hosted Solutions (Cosmocom)
4:00 PM	Digium Bill Miller VP Product Management	Asterisk Open Source Solutions

Time	Presenter	Topic
1:30 PM	Brian Cuppett ScanSource Comm.	ScanSource Communications
2:00 PM	Strategic Products and Services (SPS) Mike Taylor, CTO	Avaya Branch Office Solutions
2:30 PM	Interactive Intelligence Rick Q. Chin Manager, Solutions Marketing	Improving the Customer Experience with CIC
3:00 PM	EUS Networks Robert Campozano CEO	Asterisk Solutions on Mediant 1000 OSN
3:30 PM	Sagem-Interstar TBA	Enterprise Fax Solutions
4:00 PM	Enabling Technology Steve Bruno	Deploying Microsoft Office Communicator

See you in Orlando!

This week here at AudioCodes has been very busy.  You may have seen the post on Monday, announcing our HD VoIP strategy  which will dramatically improve the clarity and quality of voice communications.

Yesterday, we announced our new line of IP Phones, all of which will support HD VoIP.  As far as I can tell, we will be the only manufacturer that will have a 100% HD VoIP capable phones (even the low-cost entry model).

The market analysts seem to agree:

• The 310HD IP Phone is positioned as an entry level IP-Phone and includes a basic display and user interface. 
• The 320HD Premium model includes a large Monochrome LCD screen. 
• The 350HD Executive model has a large Color LCD. All models support HD VoIP.

The phones will include many important features for a range of applications, including:

• Support for popular wideband coders such as G.722, G.722.2 (WB-AMR), G.729.1 and G.711.1.
• Power over Ethernet is optional in all models.

The products will be available for testing and evaluation beginning in February 2009.

To more information on the devices or HD VoIP, click here

Okay, it's the 21st century and there are many new innovations and technologies that make our lives a whole lot easier, efficient or entertaining.  Think back about life before cell phones.  Remember pagers and calling cards?  How about the changes in TV?  With super clear picture and surround sound, HD TV makes you feel like you are at the game.  Things sure have changed for the better over the last twenty years.

Well, with one big exception - the voice quality on your telephone.

You see, the current Public Switch Telephone Network is built on technology invented in the late 50's based on digital sampling of your voice using Pulse Code Modulation (PCM) sampling.  Back then, it was groundbreaking improvement in reliability and clarity.  But to use the infrastructure and cabling efficiently, they had to make some choices about how much of your voice to collect and transmit.  The choice was a cost/benefit decision that came up with a 3.4 kHz bandwidth that created a "sound barrier", limiting the fidelity of your voice ever since then.  

Why is this important?  The 3.4 kHz bandwidth limitation in the PSTN is universal, allowing carriers to interoperate and pass voice from one to another.  It's also the ultimate commodity  - "one size fits all" in communications.  No matter whether you use one of the Bell companies or a smaller competitive carrier, everything sounds the same.  The result?  Price wars and customer churn to chase the ever cheaper commodity service.

At least until now.

With VoIP and SIP working together, we finally have the tools at our disposal to dramatically improve the quality of voice communications and break through the "sound barrier" with VoIP that uses higher sampling rates and new voice coding algorithms.

We here at AudioCodes are quite pleased to announce our HD VoIP strategy that we feel will play a critical role in migrating both the wireline and wireless communications infrastructure away from the limitations of the PSTN and into the future of High Definition Voice over IP (HD VoIP).  HD VoIP will allow carriers to differentiate their services with much higher quality voice calls and create affinity amongth their customer base.  Enterprises will be able to improve efficiency and reinforce their branding with high-fidelity customer contact.

Want to learn more?  See our dedicated landing page at:  www.audiocodes.com/hdvoip

Or attend the live webinar that I am hosting on Tuesday, November 18th at 2:00 PM EST.  Click here to visit the Webinar Registration Page

An interesting article in today's USAToday about FCC Chairman Kevin Martin's efforts to expand access to the Internet to more Americans.  If you've been following along, you know that I've been writing and talking about the importance of Universal Broadband for the health and wealth of all Americans.

Many that live in urban and suburban America don't realize this, but once you leave most metro areas, broadband access to the Internet is very difficult to get and very expensive.  I know this first hand because I've been trying for years to get broadband access to a summer cottage that our extended family shares.  We can get phone service, but for broadband we have only one option - Satellite - and frankly, that's not a good option due to the 3 second latency.

When I spend time with other year-round residents in the neighborhood, I'm amazed at the difficulty they have in doing what we consider every-day activities.  This effects not just the entertainment part of the Internet, but real business too.  Weather forecasts for farmers, tax information and filing, educational materials are all very difficult (if not impossible) to accomplish with dial-up Internet access.

However, I do struggle with the "free wireless" idea that FCC Chairman Martin is pushing in his interview.  Nothing is ever free and the complexity of installation and operation of a wireless network needs to be professionally managed and supported (partially) by those using it.  

I'd rather see an approach that provides incentives for the existing wire line and wireless operators to expand their infrastructure and coverage to Universal Broadband.  

Universal Broadband is actually very good for our industry as it will speed up the transition of all telephony over to VoIP, increase demand for ATAs and core network media gateways, softswitches and other supporting systems.

Frankly, we just need the leadership - I hope that FCC Chairman Martin can find the common ground to get the operators to support the concept of Universal Broadband without starting a fight over "free wireless".