The Next Step in Enterprise VoIP

ITEXPO attendees can schedule a free, one-on-one consultation on-site with Bandwidth.com, Broadvox, Media5, ShoreTel, Intertex Data AB and/or Ingate Systems for a personalized assessment of their specific network deployment.  Get advice, suggestions and solutions to your individual installation needs. 

Contact [email protected] to schedule, or visit Ingate at room 9C at the Austin Convention Center at ITEXPO.

See you there! 

We've announced the schedule for the new "Unified Communications: SIP Trunking, Video, Collaboration and More" seminars at ITEXPO.  UC adoption is on the rise.  We're addressing the key questions with these educational sessions, free to all ITEXPO attendees.

Speakers include Avaya, Bandwidth.com, Broadvox, Commetrex, Dialogic, FaxCore, GrandStream, Ingate Systems, Intertex Data AB, Media5, Open Visual Communications Consortium (OVCC), ShoreTel, The SIP Center, The SIP Forum, Texas A&M University, Unified Communication Interoperability Forum (UCIF) and VOIPSA. 

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Essential reading on SIP, Ingate's new e-book is a resource guide on SIP trunking, SIP security, VoIP, Unified Communications and more.  

A case study illustrating the ROI of SIP trunking achieved by Kool Smiles, a children's dental management practice with offices across the US, is included.

Topics covered in the e-book include:

•    What is the SIP protocol? •    The Basics of SIP Trunking. •    What is NAT? •    SIP Trunking: Bring your Own Bandwidth •    Managed SIP Trunking Service Providers

•    The Role of an Ingate in a Managed Services Environment •    What is SIPconnect? •    SIP Security •    Routing Rules and Policies

Download "What is SIP Trunking?" for free: http://www.tmcnet.com/tmc/whitepapers/white-paper.aspx?id=4562&title=What+is+SIP+Trunking%3f+eBook

Unified Communications is transforming the 21^st century enterprise, fueled by the exponential growth of SIP trunking, which lowers operating costs, delivers rapid ROI and feature-rich-applications.  UC implementation rates doubled from 2010-2011 according to CDW’s third annual Unified Communications Tracking Poll.

To address the need for information on the what, why and how of UC and SIP trunking, we are revamping the popular ITEXPO seminar series to offer the new Unified Communications: SIP Trunking, Voice, Video and More at ITEXPO West 2011, September 13-15, 2011.

The seminars are free to all ITEXPO attendees.

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Today’s Fax-over-IP session featured Mike Coffee of Commetrex and Max Schroeder of FaxCore. Mike pointed out that the first FAX machine was installed over 100 years ago and that the t.30 standard, which was issued in 1980, is now the most ubiquitous computer protocol. The fax industry does not foresee the demise of faxing any time soon, Mike and Max noted, because many industries will only accept faxes as legal documents since they can be date- and time-stamped.

The new standard, t.38, was first deployed in 1998. The first phase of the deployment targeted intra-company use. Continue Reading...

This morning at the SIP Trunk-UC Summit at ITEXPO Matt Vlasach of Unwired Revolution discussed supporting remote workers in "SIP: Unifying the Distributed Workforce." In this case study he described how the Ingate enables a connection to the Microsoft Lync which transforms the Lync TCP packets to UDP so they can be delivered to the ShoreTel servers and to Paetec SIP Trunking services. It also protected all the Unwired Revolution network assets.

ROI in Two Years: Matt described that the payback for the enhanced service model was less than two years and the return on investment was more than adequate to meet the requirements of the company.

The next steps are to integrate this with CRM and to support mobile VoIP and then to communication enable business processes for the customer.

Matt offered 5 tips for evolving to UC:
1. Make sure the customer LAN and the WAN is UC ready minimizing jitter, delay and packet loss
a. Use a networking monitoring tool or service to evaluate the network on a hop-by-hop basis to see where issues may be encountered
2. Use SIP and find a reputable service provider than can offer quality of service
3. Understand how people work and communicate
4. Evaluate multiple UC vendors and be willing to have a multi-vendor solution
5. Phase in the deployment and use an implementation specialist

"SIP is the glue for Unified Comms and Ingate makes it all work for interoperability and security," he concluded.

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The SIP Trunk-Unified Communications Summit is in full swing here in sunny Miami Beach at ITEXPO.  We’re blogging live from the SIP Trunk-UC Summit.  If you’re attending the show stop by the Summit in room A208 – you don’t want to miss Aastra, ShoreTel, Broadvox, VOIPSA, EarthLink Business, Qwest Business just to name a few of our panelists – all of whom are leading visionaries in SIP, SIP trunking and UC.

This morning our panelists for the Town Hall Meeting engaged in a very lively discussion about what Unified Communications really means.  

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Get the facts about Unified Communications and SIP trunking at ITEXPO. Attend the new Service Provider Pre-Conference Workshop on Feb. 1, we're discussing how SIP trunks and Unified Communications can maximize revenue and minimize deployment costs. FREE to attend.  Register here.

New SIP Trunk-UC Summit sessions Feb 2-4 on Fax-over-IP, Unifying the Distributed Workforce, case studies and more. Also FREE to attend.

Join Aastra, Broadvox, ShoreTel and many, many others — including VOIPSA, EarthLink Business, UCIF, Commetrex, FaxCore, Maloff NetResults, Bandwidth.com, SIP Forum, Unwired Revolution, Market Strategy & Analytics Partners and Intertex Data AB.

For more info click here.

See you in sunny Miami Beach!

 

Interoperability is becoming a central topic at the SIP Trunk-Unified Communications Summit at ITEXPO. The Unified Communications Interoperability Forum and SIP trunking leader BroadSoft will both be speaking, which tells me that Unified Communications is gaining traction significantly and that interoperability is becoming a key issue we must address.

Cloud-based UC is also being recognized as a unique alternative to on-premise service - both have benefits, and the BroadSoft presentation will help delineate the opportunities for both. Cloud-based SIP trunking offers all the know-how for back-end implementation and ongoing updates, maintenance etc. Continue Reading...

SIP trunks are fueling interest in, and adoption of, Unified Communications. That's why at the ITEXPO in October, in LA, we're debuting the new SIP Trunk-Unified Communications Summit, to showcase the close relationship between these two services. We're developing a program that helps demystify Unified Communications, just like we did for SIP trunking, and provides you with a roadmap - the information you need to know, now -- on the what, why and how of UC.

SIP trunking is still a focus, so look for some innovative programming on that front as well. Continue Reading...

At Ingate we've been talking recently about the evolution of SIP to Unified Communications. We've been looking at this topic for some time now, when several years ago we first addressed it as, "global SIP communications."

As our industry evolves one question keeps coming up: what is the future role of the incumbent telecoms on the fixed network? A key driver for UC has been a high demand for SIP trunking, which is fueled by the ability to deliver POTS service over the Internet and hence at a lower price. But this is accomplished by ITSPs, not incumbent telecoms. Continue Reading...

There has been a vigorous debate sparking up the Internet recently asking: "Does an Enterprise need a Session Border Controller (SBC) as part of its implementation of VoIP?"

The short answer is a resounding "YES!"

An Enterprise SBC is a crucial element in enabling and securing SIP deployments.

One common misconception about E-SBCs, and a question we receive often, is: why should a customer purchase a separate E-SBC when their service provider likely has their own? Won't the service provider's E-SBC provide adequate security?

The answer is a wholehearted, "no." Although the service provider may have its own SBC, it is in place to protect the service provider network, not the customer. An SBC at the customer edge assures that the customer's network is fully protected from any potential breach or attack.

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It's a crowded room as Bandwidth.com, Cbeyond, Mitel NetSolutions and moderator Joel Maloff talk about "The Service Provider Perspective" at the SIP Trunk Summit, ITEXPO

It's a full house today at the SIP Trunk Summit at ITEXPO. Dan York stated, "VoIP can be more secure than the PSTN if deployed correctly" and everyone really took notice. Make sure you stop by room A108/109 at the Miami Beach Convention Center today -- we have lots more to discuss, with The Service Provider Perspective at 1:30 and The SIP Forum presenting "The State of SIP Trunking" at 2:45.

Stop by the SIP Trunk Summit at ITEXPO this week, and hear all about today's announcement from Ingate and Dialogic. Here's the press release:

Dialogic to Provide "Any-to-Any" PBX Connectivity for SIP Trunking
Plans to Incorporate Ingate SIP Trunking Technology for New Enterprise Border Element Solution

ITEXPO EAST, MIAMI BEACH, FL - January 20, 2010 -Dialogic Corporation ("Dialogic"), a global provider of world-class products and technologies for media and signal processing, announced today that it has entered into an agreement with Ingate® Systems ("Ingate") which allows Dialogic to incorporate the award-winning SIP Trunking software module from Ingate into a new enterprise border element designed to connect virtually any SIP trunk with virtually any PBX, to facilitate seamless SIP trunk deployments in legacy TDM and hybrid PBX environments, as well as new SIP-based PBX systems.

"PBX's are transitioning from the traditional TDM PBX's to hybrid PBX's, IP-PBXs, and Unified Communications solutions creating a heterogeneous TDM/SIP trunk environment and there is a significant opportunity to provide connectivity and security between public and private networks," said Franz-Josef Eberle, Vice President and General Manager for the Enterprise Market Group at Dialogic. "Dialogic is meeting this growing demand by combining Ingate's proven SIP Trunking technology with Dialogic's extensive PBX and PSTN media gateway technology."

The Ingate SIP Trunking software module provides enterprise session border control along with the advanced routing capabilities necessary to connect SIP trunks to enterprise networks and branch offices by employing Ingate's proxy-based traversal and security technology.

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