wti news and articles
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Committment It is our commitment to innovation that continues to redefine the telecommunication industry Through our comprehensive suite of communication solutions, WTI helps companies manage their voice, data, internet security and disaster recovery applications 24x7 all under one umbrella with live customer service. From pre-installation to deployment and integration, we make communication flow better end-to-end.
Our Customers We will pursue innovation through our exploration of technological advances and deliver each advancement to our clients with a passionate commitment for exceptional, uncompromising service.
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Introduction to VOIP
(Article 2)When executives and managers begin considering incorporating VoIP into their operations, several common questions emerge: What is VoIP? What are the benefits? How can it be implemented in my business? Many have heard that VoIP systems offer the opportunity to reduce infrastructure costs and improve operating efficiency, and they want to know more. At wti Electronics, we offer all the VoIP information you need on our website.
In this overview, you'll get a complete definition of VoIP, an explanation of the protocol behind it, and the main reason why VoIP is so attractive as a primary communications system: it avoids the toll charges imposed by phone carriers. On this page, you'll also find a link that lets you download our VoIP Solutions Guide, which clearly explains a variety of typical VoIP applications. We will explain in detail the types of applications VoIP can be used for, including branch office connectivity, telecommuting, competitive carrier solution, as well as the differences between modular, analog, and digital telephony products. When you're ready to see the hardware that makes VoIP possible, link to our Product Guide and get detailed statistics on and and comparisons between our SmartNode VoIP products.
To find out how VoIP has worked for other companies who made the switch, we offer plenty of case studies, newsletter archives, data sheets, product manuals, and press releases at our Knowledge Base. After consulting these resources, you should have enough information to start planning for your system needs. You may request a hard copy of our free product catalog, or you can download a PDF version. When you download the catalog, you can choose to access the entire catalog, or just the sections that you need.
Multi-Protocol Label Switching (MPLS)
(Article 3)Multi-Protocol Label Switching (MPLS) was originally presented as a way of improving the forwarding speed of routers but is now emerging as a crucial standard technology that offers new capabilities for large scale IP networks. Traffic engineering, the ability of network operators to dictate the path that traffic takes through their network, and Virtual Private Network support are examples of two key applications where MPLS is superior to any currently available IP technology. Although MPLS was conceived as being independent of Layer 2, much of the excitement generated by MPLS revolves around its promise to provide a more effective means of deploying IP networks across ATM-based WAN backbones. The Internet Engineering Task Force is developing MPLS with draft standards expected by the end of 1998. MPLS is viewed by some as one of the most important network developments of the 1990's. This article will explain why MPLS is generating such interest.
The essence of MPLS is the generation of a short fixed-length label that acts as a shorthand representation of an IP packet's header. This is much the same way as a ZIP code is shorthand for the house, street and city in a postal address, and the use of that label to make forwarding decisions about the packet. IP packets have a field in their 'header' that contains the address to which the packet is to be routed. Traditional routed networks process this information at every router in a packet's path through the network (hop by hop routing). In MPLS, the IP packets are encapsulated with these labels by the first MPLS device they encounter as they enter the network. The MPLS edge router analyses the contents of the IP header and selects an appropriate label with which to encapsulate the packet. Part of the great power of MPLS comes from the fact that, in contrast to conventional IP routing, this analysis can be based on more than just the destination address carried in the IP header. At all the subsequent nodes within the network the MPLS label, and not the IP header, is used to make the forwarding decision for the packet. Finally, as MPLS labeled packets leave the network, another edge router removes the labels.
In MPLS terminology, the packet handling nodes or routers are called Label Switched Routers (LSRs). The derivation of the term should be obvious; MPLS routers forward packets by making switching decisions based on the MPLS label. This illustrates another of the key concepts in MPLS. Conventional IP routers contain routing tables which are looked up using the IP header from a packet to decide how to forward that packet. These tables are built by IP routing protocols (e.g., RIP or OSPF) which carry around IP reachability information in the form of IP addresses. In practice, we find that forwarding (IP header lookup) and control planes (generation of the routing tables) are tightly coupled. Since MPLS forwarding is based on labels it is possible to cleanly separate the (label-based) forwarding plane from the routing protocol control plane. By separating the two, each can be modified independently. With such a separation, we don't need to change the forwarding machinery, for example, to migrate a new routing strategy into the network.There are two broad categories of LSR. At the edge of the network, we require high performance packet classifiers that can apply (and remove) the requisite labels: we call these MPLS edge routers. Core LSRs need to be capable of processing the labeled packets at extremely high bandwidths. This is an abstract of the MPLS article contained in techguide.com. The complete article examines MPLS and the opportunities it offers to users and also to the service providers who are designing and engineering the next generation of IP networks. It also describes why new carrier-class edge devices will become a key component in the provisioning of future network services.
VOIP Touches a new tone with IP PBX
By Fahmida Y. Rashid, ChannelWeb (Article 4)The case for VoIP is clear: Converged networks offer businesses tremendous advantages in cost savings, greater flexibility and increased application capabilities. With new applications, customers can improve productivity.
After years of red-hot growth, the VoIP market is showing signs of maturity and stability. This is not to say the growth is slowing down—far from it. The market is still poised for strong growth as small businesses take advantage of lower costs and new applications to move their phone systems and larger enterprises away from maintaining legacy analog lines. Solution providers are seeing a new class of customers interested in VoIP: they are larger and less willing to take chances with their data, security and applications than previous adopters. These customers generally need more training and support. Larger customers mean larger profit margins, but the sales cycle gets longer as a result.
Customers, regardless of size, are also demanding more from the technology. It's no longer enough to just get the phone system onto the IP network; they want video, too. VoIP VARs need to get used to talking about unified communications as customers look for ways to combine voice with other applications to increase productivity. Most importantly, the days of complicated infrastructure are numbered. VoIP has to play nice with the rest of the network to justify its deployment.
The Test Center evaluated a few of the current VoIP offerings from some of the major players in light of the maturing market. Each product varied in its approach. Some focused on small deployments. For example, D-Link Systems Inc.'s VoiceCenter, runningMicrosoft (NSDQ: MSFT) Corp.'s Response Point, is aimed at making the switch affordable and easy while making some advanced features, such as auto-attendant and call groups, available for the smallest customers. Digium Inc.'s Switchvox solution is simplifying large deployments while simplifying mashups and application development. And even others are integrating VoIP with rest of the network. Adtran Inc.'s latest line of NetVanta switches offer QoS and other networking tools. Cisco Systems (NSDQ:CSCO) Inc. remains focused on incorporating its networking gear with with VoIP, but it recently made large investments to include messaging, TelePresence and other collaborative technologies as part of the VoIP offering.
These products all have potential and clearly demonstrate that the trend is for integration, simplicity and ease of management.
Adtran NetVanta
Huntsville, Ala.-based Adtran positions its NetVanta family of switches for the SMB that requires enterprise-class features. The switches are combination IP-PBX, PoE switch and a QoS-enabled router. In August, the company introduced six new NetVanta switches, featuring 802.3af connectivity, wireless controller capabilities and Gigabit uplink ports. Three of these Layer 2 switches offer Gigabit Power-over-Ethernet and power conservation features to minimize the amount drawn. With these new NetVanta switches, the SMB can upgrade the LAN to higher speeds and more ports while investing in VoIP equipment.
NetVanta switches support non-blocking switching, VLANs, QoS Link Aggregation, TCL scripting and remote configuration capabilities. There are options for creating ring groups, auto-attendant, paging, user directories and call coverage lists. Analog, virtual and physical SIP phones are supported. Businesses can maintain existing analog lines, including direct support for up to 10 analog trunks. The system also supports fax machines and credit card readers without requiring adapters.
In addition to advanced networking features, the system gives businesses some flexibility. Office-in-a-box capabilities reduce the amount of cash outlay required to get networking infrastructure up and running for the branch office. Monitoring and management tools ensure voice quality is not degraded. The Voice Quality Monitoring suite allows administrators to examine the data stream and identify problems using a graphical user interface. With the VQM, both active and historical VoIP call statistics are accessible. The charts and graphs present overall network health as well as areas with problems in call quality. VQM looks at Mean Opinion Score, delay, jitter and dropped or out-of-order packets. The data can be searched on a variety of parameters. The NetVanta family also includes business gateways for hosted voice applications.
The company has aggressively pursued Cisco, often undercutting the giant's prices. Adtran already has some of the most generous warranties in the market and is currently offering limited lifetime warranties on its new switches.
Cisco Smart Business Communications System San Jose, Calif.-based Cisco remains the company to beat in unified communications. With its robust product portfolio and extensive networking expertise, Cisco is a commanding presence. The heart of its SMB offering is the Smart Business Communications System, a single product offering unified communications, systems management and networking. This all-in-one system handles voice, data, video and security, bringing several communication capabilities onto a single platform and eliminating multiple servers. The SBCS comes with call-processing software that includes automated attendant, voicemail, paging, conferencing and video calls. Built-in presence technology allows callers to determine colleague availability, even if the colleague is using a softphone on the PC instead of a physical IP phone. Cisco has also aggressively promoted conferencing and collaboration tools such as WebEx and TelePresence applications that combine video and voice conferencing with Web presentation and other capabilities. Cisco's Unified Communications Manager Express encourages staff collaboration and access to customer data. There are options to integrate the voice data with Microsoft and Salesforce.com CRM applications and other third-party applications. The integration allows businesses to combine information stored in other applications with caller data to provide a much more responsive and productive support experience. SBCS also supports remote workers and branch offices. Remote workers and telecommuters can take advantage of the same voice system as the rest of the company despite not being on the corporate network. Calls can be seamlessly forwarded to mobile and home phones without interrupting the current conversation. Digium Switchvox Pro and Asterisk Digium, Huntsville, Ala., is the creator and the best-known backer of Asterisk, although there are plenty of other companies selling Asterisk gear (Fonality, Los Angeles, is one). While VARs can choose to sell Asterisk on their own sourced hardware, Digium also offers Switchvox, an Asterisk-based appliance, and Switchvox Hosted Edition, a SaaS product. Switchvox relies on a switchboard to manage and organize call flow. Mashups are created (some are ridiculously easy) and run off the switchboard. A typical mashup might link the caller's phone number with the relevant record on a CRM application, display call logs and direct the caller to the same agent from a previous call. Digium will increase the focus on unified communications in the next version of Switchvox. The company is also working to make Switchvox attractive to larger customers by making large-scale deployments easier. The aim is to make the system as easy to roll out for 400 users as it is for 10 users. The appliance detects the phones as soon as they are plugged into the local network and the phones download all configuration information directly from the server. The administrator simply has to set up extensions and call groups. The switchboard can be used to direct or escalate calls accordingly. With over 250 channel partners, Digium also offers an online marketplace for partners, VARs and developers to offer Asterisk-based products and solutions. Partners looking for more advanced features can deploy Asterisk on their own instead of the simpler Switchvox.
D-Link Voice Center and Microsoft Response Point
Developed entirely in-house by a group that acted like an independent startup within Microsoft, Response Point requires only Windows XP or Vista on the management PC. Everything else is built-in to the IP-PBX box available from D-Link Systems, Fountain Valley, Calif., and Quanta Computer Inc., Tao Yuan, Taiwan. Response Point SP 1 was released in July and now allows SIP trunking integration for external VoIP calls. While customers can continue to use analog lines, SP1 simplifies the process for adding new phone lines.
While D-Link's VoiceCenter can support 50 users, the sweet spot is around 10—making VoIP an option for the smallest businesses. The system is easy to set up and service. If something goes wrong with the PBX, solution providers can just swap in a replacement box and restore from the last system backup. The base unit also comes with a built-in DHCP server, handy for customers who don't already have one or want to deploy the phone system on a VLAN. The PBX runs off solid-state flash memory, adding to its reliability. The IP phones support 802.3af PoE. The voice recognition capabilities integrate with the Outlook address book flawlessly. The system plugs directly into the existing analog line and provides internal calls over IP without changing anything externally. This is an attractive option for startups and businesses based out of a space without office-specific infrastructure.
Bottom Line
As the market matures and stabilizes, solution providers can expect vendors to place more emphasis on scalability, price and unified communications capabilities. Regardless of the number of users on the customer site, VoIP systems have to offer more than just call routing. Ways to prioritize and redirect calls—such as paging and call escalation—is essential, and the ability to integrate with third-party applications is attractive. Other goodies like PoE and support for wireless handsets wouldn't hurt either.
How VoIP Works
By Robert Valdes and Dave Roos, HowStuffWorks (Article 5)If you've never heard of VoIP, get ready to change the way you think about long-distance phone calls. VoIP, or Voice over Internet Protocol, is a method for taking analog audio signals, like the kind you hear when you talk on the phone, and turning them into digital data that can be transmitted over the Internet. How is this useful? VoIP can turn a standard Internet connection into a way to place free phone calls. The practical upshot of this is that by using some of the free VoIP software that is available to make Internet phone calls, you're bypassing the phone company (and its charges) entirely.
VoIP is a revolutionary technology that has the potential to completely rework the world's phone systems. VoIP providers like Vonage have already been around for a while and are growing steadily. Major carriers like AT&T are already setting up VoIP calling plans in several markets around the United States, and the FCC is looking seriously at the potential ramifications of VoIP service. Above all else, VoIP is basically a clever "reinvention of the wheel." In this article, we'll explore the principles behind VoIP, its applications and the potential of this emerging technology, which will more than likely one day replace the traditional phone system entirely.
The interesting thing about VoIP is that there is not just one way to place a call. There are three different "flavors" of VoIP service in common use today:
*ATA - The simplest and most common way is through the use of a device called an ATA (analog telephone adaptor). The ATA allows you to connect a standard phone to your computer or your Internet connection for use with VoIP. The ATA is an analog-to-digital converter. It takes the analog signal from your traditional phone and converts it into digital data for transmission over the Internet. Providers like Vonage and AT&T CallVantage are bundling ATAs free with their service. You simply crack the ATA out of the box, plug the cable from your phone that would normally go in the wall socket into the ATA, and you're ready to make VoIP calls. Some ATAs may ship with additional software that is loaded onto the host computer to configure it; but in any case, it's a very straightforward setup.
*IP Phones - These specialized phones look just like normal phones with a handset, cradle and buttons. But instead of having the standard RJ-11 phone connectors, IP phones have an RJ-45 Ethernet connector. IP phones connect directly to your router and have all the hardware and software necessary right onboard to handle the IP call. Wi-Fi phones allow subscribing callers to make VoIP calls from any Wi-Fi hot spot.
*Computer-to-Computer - This is certainly the easiest way to use VoIP. You don't even have to pay for long-distance calls. There are several companies offering free or very low-cost software that you can use for this type of VoIP. All you need is the software, a microphone, speakers, a sound card and an Internet connection, preferably a fast one like you would get through a cable or DSL modem. Except for your normal monthly ISP fee, there is usually no charge for computer-to-computer calls, no matter the distance.
Advantages of MPLS Installation & Deployment
Author Unknown, USAvetelecom (Article 6)MPLS is an excellent choice for businesses with multiple locations using a large amount of bandwidth for voice and data traffic. However, there are several things to consider before the installation and deployment of MPLS vs. other options:
1. Security - MPLS has numerous security benefits. Data is held in IP packets, providing secure isolation of these packets from other traffic over the same physical link. Some carriers even offer to make the MPLS data/traffic more secure by holding it on a private IP Backbone. All sites on your network are also managed with a single point premium firewall between the Internet to the MPLS cloud.
2. Scalability - Compared to other network systems, MPLS offers more scalability. If you are considering a "do-it-yourself" deployment of MPLS in your business, the edge routers, firewalls and multiple access methods around the MPLS cloud can be useful information to obtain from your MPLS carrier. This is of particular importance when taking into account the management of the network equipment, as well as your disaster recovery options should any of the network equipment fail.
3. QoS - While it's a known fact that you will get more true bandwidth for your money from a DSL or cable connection, a reliable MPLS carrier offers excellent QoS (quality of service) in terms of network engineering help, in planning and implementation of the network. QoS isn't the same from carrier to carrier. It depends on the applications run on your WAN, how sensitive your bandwidth is to latency, how bandwidth intensive the application is and the number of users at each location.
4. Cost - Every business considering a migration to or deployment of a new network system is thinking, "How much is this going to cost me?" While MPLS is, in general, cheaper than Frame Relay (which is quickly becoming a dinosaur in the networking world), as well as ATM, DSL and cable usually offer more bang for the buck. On a cautionary note though, DSL and cable are more complicated to manage as well as generally harder to troubleshoot.
Small Businesses Benefit From Voice Over Internet Protocol (VoIP)
Author Unknown, ArticlesBase (Article 7)The term which describes transmissions of phone calls over a data network instead of a regular phone line is VoIP, or Voice over Internet Protocol. This basic concept has an important role on modern telecommunications. The convergence of many forms of communications into just one network is made possible by the larger technology. This transformation creates an entirely new way for communications to work, and the possibility of offering big results for your company. Voice over Internet Protocol can assist your business' growth by expanding communications abilities, reducing costs and facilitating a more productive, mobile and flexible work team. All over the world, small companies are taking advantage of the offerings of VoIP systems
Below find some top reasons why this technology is creating a huge impact on small biz communications:- Creates avenues for improved productivity among employees by offering more flexible communication, increased mobility and improved information flow. - Offers communication capabilities equal to large companies on to smaller businesses.
- Is scalable with the possibility of new applications, driving revenue while able to respond to growth.
- Able to employ and integrate the voice and data network at a better price than the cost of each combined.
Early implementers of VoIP have tended to be smaller companies, as they are usually excellent candidates for the new technology. Bigger companies usually have intricate networks and an array of telephone systems which can't be easily converged into one single network. Smaller business networks are often simpler, making the switch over to VoIP simpler.
Many benefits of VoIP exist for small companies. A system upgrade among an existing phone system allows VoIP from a variety of locations without major disruptions to office infrastructure. Also, a new system can replace an old phone switch to add new capabilities. Companies have the option to make monthly payments to a Service Provider for hosting a VoIP system, eliminating the need to purchase the capital outright.
Some smaller businesses, however, find that there are complex difficulties that can prevent them from fully realizing the benefits of the new system. A lack of sound advice, an incomplete plan or installation by untrained employees can all become real problems.
Successful transition to a Voice over Internet Protocol network starts with a thorough understanding of the plan, and a clear idea of how the case to use it will further the company's business objectives. VoIP will probably have an increased impact under certain circumstances. Faster return is possible if your small business is in one or more of these scenarios:
- Has an increasing amount of incoming call traffic. - Hasn't upgraded or substituted the telephone system within the last five years. - Has international branch offices. - Is expanding and is likely to require larger facilities. - Has a good percentage of staff which travels for business, or works from home on laptop computers. - Is merging or acquiring another company, and needs to integrate. - Has extensive Ethernet cable networks and equipment that is no more than three years old. - Works in a market where competition is strong and customer service is paramount. VoIP phone systems provide excellent potential for smaller companies to maintain low costs while growing the success of the business.
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