3Com to scale internet protocol telephony solutions for enterprises 

3Com Corporation today announced plans at NetWorld+Interop 2003 to extend its Internet protocol (IP) telephony platform strategy to meet the unique needs of enterprises of any size. 3Com`s new initiative broadens its local area network (LAN) telephony solution to customers requiring IP-based phone systems of varying sizes integrated across multi-site environments.

"3Com`s strategy is to cover small-to-large multi-site enterprises with systems that scale and pay back in one year in many cases," said Dave Hattey, 3Com vice president and general manager of enterprise voice solutions. "We are committed to leveraging open IP-based voice systems to deliver end-to-end solutions for enterprise customers. This is a critical market for 3Com and we intend to be a vendor of choice."

The new initiative combines and extends existing, industry-leading 3Com IP technologies, including carrier-class softswitch and media gateways, and 3Com`s award-winning NBX platform. "We`ve worked with several Fortune 500 companies to help define and validate our integrated solutions and now have trials and deployment in progress in multiple locations," said Hattey.

In its preliminary work with a leading financial services company, 3Com is demonstrating the IP architecture design and applications that are capable of creating a return on investment that could result in substantial savings per user per year. The savings potential for the company can occur as a result of 3Com`s system ability to:

a.       Manage multiple locations from a scalable centralised location;

b.       Reduce operating costs of voice and associated applications for the company`s many locations by creating a single network with a single point of management;

c.       Deliver new applications that improve employee productivity and responsiveness to customers.

3Com believes the market for enterprise IP telephony is defined by four critical factors. They are:

a.       Low total cost of ownership;

b.       Scalability to work across a multi-site environment and ability to be provisioned and managed from one or many locations;

c.       An open, standards-based architecture to accommodate best-in-class solutions;

d.       A clear, flexible migration plan that allows each customer to migrate to IP telephony at its own pace.

3Com`s softswitch and media gateways have been deployed by the world`s largest telecommunications service providers, including AT&T, China Unicom and MCI/WorldCom, since 1999, and have carried more than 17.5 billion minutes of voice traffic with 99.999 percent availability and no degradation in voice quality.

3Com`s NBX networked telephony solution delivers a robust call-processing feature set coupled with a suite of telephony applications. Designed for central or branch offices with two to more than 1,000 phones per location, it features fourth-generation 3Com NBX (R4.1) system software that simplifies third-party applications integration and offers extensive multi-site IP connectivity options. The 3Com NBX has maintained the No. 1 or No. 2 position in worldwide IP private branch exchange (PBX) market share for system shipments since the category inception in 1999, according to Synergy Research Group.

This blending of proven, reliable IP telephony systems allows 3Com to address the full range of business communications needs, from a handful of users at a single location to hundreds of thousands of users integrated across a multi-site environment of headquarters facilities, regional offices, small offices, and individual telecommuters. This is in distinct contrast to competitors` systems, which require different phones and solutions for offices of different sizes.

3Com`s commitment to an open, standards-based IP telephony architecture promotes the use of standards-based elements and applications, so customers are not reliant on proprietary technology or legacy time division multiplexing (TDM) switch technology with IP-enabling add-ons.

3Com said it offers today`s IP telephony solutions that deliver powerful new business advantages, including:

a.       Reduced connectivity charges;

b.       Reduced network administration costs;

c.       Lower costs for employee phone moves, adds and changes;

d.       Savings on teleconferencing costs by using IP-based systems;

e.       Enhanced employee productivity tools, including unified communications and "find me/follow me;"

f.         Ability to access IP-based features and applications while working remotely;

g.       Improved management of call center operations.

For example, an IP-based contact center operation built on a software-based switching application can now blend voice, e-mail, and web communications into a unified queue and route traffic cost-effectively over a single, ubiquitous data network to any destination in the enterprise.

Known as 3Com VCX (Voice Core eXchange) V7000, 3Com`s IP-based voice equipment for enterprises is available today for customer trials and deployments in North America.