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Tech Words

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Andy writes about technology with intelligence and insight. He has written for B2B publications, market research firms, and major software and financial companies. Specializing in telecommunications, enterprise software, security, and small-office technology. White papers. Features. Software reviews. Corporate newsletters. Web copy. Blogging.

For Communications Convergence magazine

VoIP Gateways

More and more bandwidth, everywhere you look. The corporate WAN has excess capacity. The Internet has excess capacity too, and it’s ubiquitous. Put voice, fax, and other “telecom” data (e.g., PBX signaling) over the LANand/or the Net, and a multi-location business can save money dozens of ways. Not just by simple arbitrage (i.e., a VoIP connection costs far less than a conventional call carried by copper loops and TDM), but by eliminating hard recurring charges (e.g., for Tielines); aggregating and making better use of facilities (e.g., voicemail); empowering remote- and home- workers; enhancing contact center, e- and v-commerce infrastructure; and by enabling other special applications. What do you need for basic enterprise VoIP? A set of gateways. Standard VoIP gateways bridge your data network (or carrier data pipe) to PBX trunk connections, analog station ports, fax, and other telecom equipment. The gateway accepts analog, TDM or 2B+D voice and signaling, and converts it to IP according to the requirements of one or more IP call-management protocols (e.g., H.323, SIP). Calls travel across the data network and are reconverted to conventional forms at the other end, for completion.

Sounds almost painless, doesn’t it? In fact, reality is swiftly catching up with hype. Today’s enterprise VoIP gateways come in numerous scales and form factors: from PBX plug-in cards to stand-alone rackmount devices to small- scale “desktop” models.