Cisco strengthens remote VoIP options

by Phil Hochmuth

May 11, 2001 —

Cisco last week unveiled a voice-over-IP gateway that is designed to keep remote office IP phones online even if the site's WAN link fails.

The gateway could appeal to users who may have balked at deploying centrally managed voice over IP to remote offices due to a lack of back-up options for ensuring IP dial tone if a data line goes down. The gateway was part of a slew of IP voice software products Cisco rolled out aimed at improving end-user productivity with converged voice/data applications.

Cisco's Catalyst 4224 Access Gateway Switch is a voice-over-IP gateway router targeted at enterprise branch offices with up to 24 users. The device includes 24 10/100M bit/sec Ethernet switch ports, which can provide in-line power to IP telephones, choice of several WAN interfaces and firewall capabilities through Cisco IOS software.

The Catalyst 4224 also provides what Cisco calls Survivable Remote Site (SRS) telephony, which lets the box keep phones lines up even if the WAN link back to a central Cisco Call Server goes down.

In the past users either had to put a Call Server in a remote site to ensure phone connectivity or have a back-up analog phone line in case of a failed WAN link. According to Cisco, the Catalyst 4224 is able to sense if a WAN link fails and reroute calls over a backup ISDN line, with call control being provided by the switch. Cisco has also made an upgrade to its IOS software that will let Cisco 2600 and 3600 routers perform SRS voice failover.

The ability to have centralized call servers with minimal equipment at a branch office is important to Tony Farinacci, senior vice president of enterprise technology at KeyCorp, a banking firm in Cleveland. Farinacci is testing the Catalyst 4224 and plans on using the box for voice over IP in some of Key's 920 bank branches in Ohio and New York.

"We didn't want to deploy [call servers] across all our branches," Farinacci says. "That was not the most cost-effective architecture," in terms of the cost of the equipment and support for each branch.

Farinacci calls Cisco's new centralized voice-over-IP architecture "the best of both worlds from a support point of view, because you have a centralized call manager cluster that you can support from one or two data centers. Then you have the benefit of local survivability in your branches in the event you have some type of [WAN] circuit failure, which is extremely important to us."

One analyst says keeping remote sites up is a critical feature for companies that are considering voice over IP in their branch locations.

"For enterprises considering IP telephony in the past, the prior lack of remote survivability was an insurmountable barrier," says Joel Conover, a senior analyst with Current Analysis.

By having limited call control features in the Catalyst 4224, network professionals don't have to choose between putting a call server in remote sites to ensure dial tone or risking lost phone connections to the branch if a WAN link fails.

The Catalyst 4224 will compete with branch office voice-over-IP gateways such as Alcatel's Media Gateway and Avaya's R300 Remote Office Communicator.

Other products announced include Cisco Personal Assistant, Cisco IP Integrated Contact Distribution (IP-ICD) for small calll centers, an XML software upgrade for Cisco IP phones as well as upgrades for Cisco's Unity unified messaging software CallManager server software.

Cisco Personal Assistant is an application that the company says will let users establish rules for taking incoming calls, as well as managing e-mail. A graphical interface lets users set rules for screening and forwarding calls to a home or mobile phone. Voice commands can also be used to sort through e-mails and establish conference calls by group or individual names.

The IP-ICD software is call center software for offices with up to 48 agents. The software provides call distribution to agents and integrates with Cisco's IP voice response and autoattendant applications.

Cisco's IP Phone Productivity Services is a suite of XML-based tools that will let users access information such as stock quotes, e-mail, voice mail and calendar data from the LCD screen on Cisco 7960 and 7940 IP phones.

The latest version of Cisco's unified messaging software, Unity 2.46, comes with expanded language support and diagnostic tools for supporting large-scale deployments across multiple time zones.

The Cisco CallManager 3.1, which runs its call server IP PBX, now supports extension mobility, letting end users log on to any phone in a company and receive calls at their four-digit extensions.

The software also has support for SRS telephony on the Catalyst 4224 and Cisco 2600 and 3600 routers.

Most of the new Cisco voice-over-IP products will be available in the second quarter.

The Catalyst 4224 is priced at $13,000, while SRS IOS upgrades for Cisco routers cost $750 for 24 users. Cisco Unity 2.46 costs $146 per seat, and the IP-ICD and CallManager 3.1 cost $5,000 and $6,000, respectively. The Cisco IP Phone Productivity Services software will be available in the third quarter, with pricing to be announced.

Network World