WAN service adds IP voice options
Exponential offers four new components to virtual LAN package.
Network systems provider Exponential-e last week unveiled its PowerVoice service to help large and medium-sized firms converge data and voice services over their existing wide area network (WAN) infrastructure.
Four versions of PowerVoice are being offered, based on Exponential-e’s next-generation network (NGN) for virtual LAN services, which was rolled out in January.
Exponential-e’s chief technology officer, Adrian Hobbins, said, “We’re just adding some new components onto our service-creation platform, enabling firms to utilise their investment in high-speed optical access circuits to add voice capabilities.”
Hobbins said that one option for customers is to create their own voice over IP (VoIP) system with their own Cisco Call Manager or Avaya packages – and Exponential-e will create a separate voice virtual private network (VPN) for them with converged infrastructure.
“Because we run at Layer 2, we have logical separation of voice and data, without running Layer 3 filtering or access lists,” said Hobbins. “On the customer’s premises we have an Ethernet demarcation device [EDD], which allows a clean ultra-secure cable going to their LAN switch, a less secure internet feed going to their firewall and a third cable going to their Power over Ethernet [PoE] switch to support their VoIP phones. We don’t have to use expensive routers to do this – we use our virtual private LAN service [VPLS] network.”
A second option, PowerVoice Centrex, is for customers who do not want to set up their own IP PBX. It uses hardware and connections hosted by Exponential-e’s network. A variation on this is to connect customers to their choice of voice IP Centrex provider. “We’re not prescriptive, we don’t say it’s our service or nothing,” said Hobbins.
A third option is PowerVoice PBX, which replicates legacy voice channels across Exponential-e’s network, using multiple 2Mbit/s E1
connections, so firms can have integrated voice and data without having to change PBXs. “And PowerVoice PSTN allows us to offer access to alternative operators to customers with legacy PBXs and this gives cheaper call minutes,” said Hobbins.
Current Analysis analyst Sandra O’Boyle said, “This portfolio of services should appeal to data customers because it allows them to take advantage of VoIP without throwing away existing equipment.”