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Mr. Mojo Risin' said that about thirty years before the advent of IP telephony, so let's update it to the CT industry circa 1999: "There are things PSTN and there are things IP, and in between are the Gateways." (That travesty should bring Jim out of hiding to register a scream of protest. While we're waiting, let's get on with the feature.)
Since the world did not convert overnight to digital, IP-based telephony, any company or service provider that wants to implement it has the choice of connecting only to other IPBXs, or to use some sort of bridge to connect the packetized, digital signals to the analog telephony world. Such a bridge is called a Voice over IP Gateway.
A couple of years ago, VoIP gateways did not exist. Now, almost every major network hardware maker has one or more devices on the market or deep into beta testing. As IP telephony spreads through ITSPs, CLECs and more traditional telephony service vendors, gateways will be crucial pieces of hardware, providing the link between the old and the new. Gateways' ability to convert large call volumes between digital and analog, and their ability to maintain acceptable voice quality while doing so, will be will be important enablers of convergence.
For our fourth product comparison test of 1999, we decided that VoIP gateways were due for a thorough examination. They're so important to the immediate future of telephony that we further decided to extend the test. This month, we'll evaluate gateways suitable for branch-office or other low-to-medium density uses, and next month, we'll follow on by testing some hefty high-density enterprise-class gateways.
Typically, a CLEC or ITSP serious about using IP telephony would install a large enterprise-class or carrier-class gateway, probably one with good scalability. If their service area is large enough, they would install such a gateway at each major point of service, then route calls between them and hop off to the PSTN at the closest (or lowestcost) point to complete the call. Alternatively, a company that wants to ride the IP train might put an enterprise-class gateway at each major site, and much smaller gateways in branch offices. It's these smaller-scale gateways we'll look at this month.
There are a variety of potential...