Clarent and Siemens Atea have announced the development of a virtual private network over IP solution that is intended to allow fully featured and transparent PBX networks over IP telephony-based networks.
This solution is the first combined product offering following last month's announcement of an original equipment manufacturer relationship between the companies.
Today, Internet telephony service providers (ITSPs) and data telcos approach major corporate clients with a challenging offer to converge their telephony and data network into one single VPN based on IP.
Until now, however, ITSPs did not manage to create a major breakthrough into the corporate VPN market, in part because they could only offer a limited number of telephony features.
Traditionally, PBXs in these medium and large companies are linked via point-to-point digital leased lines using signalling protocols such as Digital Private Network Signaling System or Q-reference point signalling.
These protocols provide inter-PBX signalling for the enhanced features commonly used within a corporate environment. Since this functionality was lacking in the offer of the ITSPs, most corporate network owners were reluctant to sacrifice the enhanced functionality common to today's PBX networking.
To address this drawback, Clarent and Siemens Atea have developed a VPN-IP solution that is designed to allow a single communications network based on IP to transmit both the inter-PBX signalling information needed for the enhanced PBX features and the voice conversations over the same network.
Consequently, all typical PBX features such as "call back when free", "calling name display", "network-wide call pickup" and "central attendant" may be made available network-wide over IP.
By offering a VPN-IP solution, ITSPs and data telcos should be able to allow enterprises to take full advantage of low cost long distance and international calling without compromising the efficiency and user-friendliness of their corporate networks.
Furthermore, having one single network introduces a whole range of possible network management and maintenance cost savings to the enterprise.
Another anticipated benefit of the Clarent Siemens Atea VPN-IP solution is the flexibility to replace the private line point-to-point signalling connections in the enterprise network with an IP-based point-to-multipoint solution.
Trials for the VPN-IP solution are currently underway. One of the beta trials is with Mitel, a manufacturer and major provider of PBXs and PBX networks.
Commercial availability is targeted for the fourth quarter of 1999.
Share
