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Alan Percy
| Observations by Alan D. Percy on VoIP enabling technology, industry and our personal reach for success.
November 2008
You are browsing the archive for November 2008.
SIP Trunking for TDM PBXs?
November 24, 2008This last few months we've started to see growing opportunities with SIP Trunking partners, helping them with media gateways to connect their services with end-customers that want to retain their legacy TDM PBXs.
There are a number of reasons for this interest:
Cost Reduction - SIP Trunking allows SMBs to reduce their local and long distance charges and eliminate the need for separate T1 telephone circuits. With SIP Trunking, all their voice and data traffic share the same physical last mile connection.
Saving the PBX - The vast majority of today's installed base is still using TDM PBXs. Many SMBs and enterprises upgraded their TDM PBXs back in 1999, preparing for Y2k. Many of these are still working perfectly and have years of useful life remaining. Why toss out a perfectly good business tool, especially with the current economic situation?
Simplying The Process - instead of trying to decide on a complete communications infrastructure upgrade and try decide on a new IP-PBX, just upgrade the part they need now (cost savings). The typical IP-PBX decision process takes close to a year, issuing RFIs, evaluations, getting buy in from all the departments. Start saving money now!
Security - until all the issues with SIP security are fully addressed, this architecture is the most secure means to keep hackers out of your network.
Right Place at the Right Time - To date, most of the noise at the industry trade shows has been about SIP Trunking with IP-PBX, which fills the rooms and creates buzz. However, what about the millions of TDM PBXs out there? It seems to me that this is the bigger market that can be addressed now.
Stay tuned as this discussion continues....
Small Operators - Are you being left behind?
November 19, 2008
As part of our continuing series on applications based on SIP, I've pulled together Mike Wilkinson of Broadsoft and Scott Firth of IBM to discuss the challenges and solutions that small communications operators can leverage SIP and VoIP to expand their business. The objective of the event is to educate the smaller and rural telecos, internet service providers, cable companies on the opportunities and solutions available to add voice to their existing IP networks.
The story behind the story starts on my front lawn with the owner of a local fixed wireless ISP we have here in western NY. His network uses fixed wireless repeaters around northern Allegany County, NY to service hundreds of homes, farms and businesses with broadband that the local ILEC won't service with DSL or other wired broadband technologies. He was describing his challenges with building out the network and desire to add services to increase revenue. The rest of the story will be covered in today's event.
Small Operator - Are you being left behind?
The story behind the story starts on my front lawn with the owner of a local fixed wireless ISP we have here in western NY. His network uses fixed wireless repeaters around northern Allegany County, NY to service hundreds of homes, farms and businesses with broadband that the local ILEC won't service with DSL or other wired broadband technologies. He was describing his challenges with building out the network and desire to add services to increase revenue. The rest of the story will be covered in today's event.
Small Operator - Are you being left behind?
Wednesday, November 19, 2008 2:00pm ET / 11:00am PT
Small and mid-tier operators of cable systems, rural telcos, internet service providers, and regional wireless providers are constantly challenged with ways to improve customer retention and increase revenue.
VoIP and other bundled offerings are widely recognized as a means to achieve these goals. Market analyst AMI Partners Inc. agrees, noting in a forecast that SMB hosted VoIP spending will surpass $1.56 billion by 2010. However, the cost, technical complexity and financial risks involved with building a VoIP solution from scratch have been outside the means of many operators and as a result, kept them on the sidelines.
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AudioCodes Launches IP Phone Product Family
November 6, 2008
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:
"AudioCodes entry into the IP Phone market is a bold and strategic move. It enables AudioCodes to address the fast growing market for 3rd Party IP Phones with the latest developments in High Definition (HD) voice technology," commented Jeremy Duke, President & CEO of Synergy Research Group, Inc. "The IP phone market has consistently delivered strong shipment growth over the last 8 years as it continues to displace the large installed base of TDM phones worldwide. We believe the second growth phase of the IP Phone market is just beginning to take hold, driven by increased deployments of SIP in the Enterprise and an increasing number of Service Providers offering Managed VoIP services (hosted telephony)."
The line will initially include three models:
To more information on the devices or HD VoIP, click here
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:
"AudioCodes entry into the IP Phone market is a bold and strategic move. It enables AudioCodes to address the fast growing market for 3rd Party IP Phones with the latest developments in High Definition (HD) voice technology," commented Jeremy Duke, President & CEO of Synergy Research Group, Inc. "The IP phone market has consistently delivered strong shipment growth over the last 8 years as it continues to displace the large installed base of TDM phones worldwide. We believe the second growth phase of the IP Phone market is just beginning to take hold, driven by increased deployments of SIP in the Enterprise and an increasing number of Service Providers offering Managed VoIP services (hosted telephony)."
The line will initially include three models:
- 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.
- 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.
To more information on the devices or HD VoIP, click here
Breaking the Sound Barrier with VoIP
November 3, 2008
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
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
Verizon FiOS TV - Part II
November 1, 2008Okay, it has been a few weeks since the last post on my FiOS installation and I promised you a review of the newly activated television capabilities.
Installation
FiOS TV is installed pretty much like any other cable TV with one big exception - Fiberoptics cable from the central office to the Optical Network Terminator (ONT) in my basement. From there, it is standard RJ-6 cable-TV coax cable to each of the Motorola Set Top Boxes (STBs). The data traffic from the STBs goes over the same coax, avoiding a separate Ethernet and/or phone line run to each box (which was required for DirecTV). The installer was able to re-use the existing wiring in my house, which dramatically simplified installation.
