Siltek Telecoms introduces industry's first combined PBX integration and multimedia platform from Dialogic

Siltek Telecoms local distributor for Intel's Dialogic company, has introduced Dialogic's new D/82JCT-U platform, the first private branch exchange (PBX) integration product to consolidate digital connectivity and multimedia functions in messaging systems. The new platform can connect with most switches on the market, including Lucent, Mitel, Nortel, and Siemens.

Dialogic expects the D/82JCT-U to play a key role in its customers' strategies for the converging voice and data networks. According to Siltek Telecoms MD, Michael Aitken, this PBX integration platform helps protect an organisation's existing investment in costly PBX equipment. "At the same time it helps the business transition to the more advanced, converged voice/data network model, by providing connectivity between legacy telecom equipment and the Internet or a local- or wide-area network," he explains. "The platform also enables today's most popular computer telephony (CT) applications such as Internet telephony, call centre, unified messaging, and interactive multimedia response."

Aitken says that one of the many reasons for selecting the Dialogic PBX integration platform was for its combined multimedia and connectivity capabilities. "The broad Dialogic switch support, along with voice, speech, and fax media support, provides the feature-richness, programmability, and scalability needed. Overall, we believe Dialogic has a very robust PBX integration platform."

He points out that open solutions such as the D/82JCT-U are necessary in today's fast-changing and highly competitive enterprise market. "Businesses need a server that protects their investment in legacy equipment while delivering the flexibility and extensibility to adapt to their growing needs for converged multimedia solutions. PBX integration building blocks, which seamlessly connect the enterprise switch to the data network, make these servers cost-effective, channel-ready, and easy to upgrade and support."

Providing flexible and advanced digital connectivity to today's most popular PBXs, the D/82JCT-U PBX platform lets users easily connect to most available switches through a single, programmable interface. Besides connectivity, Dialogic PBX integration products offer multimedia programmable ports. This allows users to access voice, fax, speech, and call processing functionality and PBX integration on the same platform, streamlining the technology and reducing the cost of ownership for systems requiring multimedia functionality, such as unified messaging, speech auto attendants, and call centre applications, he explains.

"Dialogic digital PBX integration technology also eliminates the complexities associated with analog or T-1 integration to a PBX, as well as costly investments in proprietary computer-telephone integration links," adds Aitken.

In most medium-sized to large businesses, the life span of a private branch exchange (PBX) averages 5 to 10 years, which means there's a lot of expensive PBX equipment out there and it's working just fine. But as growing businesses finally see the much-hyped convergence era become real, they're facing the question of 'Now what?'

"Businesses want to make the most of the converged world without having to scrap their investment in PBXs and proprietary telephone equipment," he continues. "They want today's leading converged applications like unified messaging, Web-based interactive media response (IMR), speech-based auto attendants, and Web-enabled contact centres. And they want them to work seamlessly with their PBX."

He says that this problem is now solved with Dialogic's new D/82JCT-U platform designed to be the first PBX integration building block optimised for today's advanced multimedia solutions. "It delivers the highest port density, the most features, and the easiest scalability one can get, making it simple to connect to the most popular mid-size PBXs.

Aitken points out that the D/82JCT-U delivers everything unified applications demand. Since today's sophisticated applications for the converged network allow voice, fax, and information to be retrieved and sent over either telephone or data networks, they need much more than basic voice resources. "The D/82JCT-U provides advanced digital integration to today's most popular PBXs, plus a universal PBX interface that offers a downloadable selection of switches. Support for advanced PBX features makes it easier to develop unique unified messaging, IMR, and call management solutions like automatic call distribution (ACD)," he adds. "Using the D/82JCT-U board for enterprise applications lets developers eliminate the complexities of analog or T-1 integration, as well as costly investments in proprietary computer-telephone integration (CTI) links."

He continues, "The D/82JCT-U also delivers powerful multimedia capabilities, with programmable soft-ports that support advanced technologies like voice, fax, call handling, and speech thus reducing the cost of ownership for multimedia systems. Plus, the D/82JCT-U supports coders for Internet messaging, including the industry-standard GSM and G.726. "

PBX integration products are crucial to developers, for digital connectivity to enterprise switches, for access to important switch information, for making voice applications easier and more reliable than with analog or T-1/E-1 interfaces. Also, for building more advanced applications. "Infact, almost every business implements a switch for telephone connectivity and we believe that the D/82JCT-U is the PBX integration of the future."