Cisco rolls out convergence gear

SAN JOSE - Cisco's new convergence products are intended to serve notice that packet telephony is ready for prime time.

The company has announced a handful of new products and a service program for melding voice, data and video over a campus packet infrastructure. Cisco claims the products can help reduce user telephony equipment and services costs and support new multimedia applications.

Among the new products is Cisco CallManager 2.2, call-processing software that runs on a Windows NT server. It supports up to 100 users in a small or branch office.

Version 2.2 features enhanced H.323 interoperability and support for the Windows Telephony API(TAPI).

TAPI enables the development of voice applications on the Windows operating system. H.323 is a standard for running multimedia over packet networks.

CallManager 2.2 also includes a browser-based call-attendant console with drag-and-drop call routing; a digital gateway to PBXs or public networks that supports up to four T-1s; and a voice mail system called Cisco Valet.

The Rogers Group, a road construction firm in Nashville, Tenn., has had CallManager installed for about a year. The company has 35 users in three of its 70 sites conversing over a data infrastructure, according to telecom administrator Alan Perry, who says there are still some wrinkles to iron out.

"It's not the IP packet area that has had the problems, it's been the gateway and talking to the local exchange carrier," he says. "The only pain I've really felt is in [dumbing down the gateway] to speak on the public switched telephone network."

CallManager 2.2 is free to existing customers and will be available in May. Telephone and gateway licenses cost $125 per user.

Another new convergence product is the VSC2700, a voice switch controller for Cisco's Catalyst 8500 LAN switches. The VSC2700 is designed to replace or off-load tandem PBXs and switch calls over ATM campus networks, metropolitan area networks or WANs.

The VSC2700, which is a result of Cisco's acquisition of LightSpeed, interprets PBX signaling to set up ATM circuits. Cisco plans to evolve this technology to embrace packet-over-SONET and other transmission media, says Byron Henderson, a Cisco marketing director. The VSC2700 is priced according to configuration and is available this month.

Cisco has also rolled out the multimedia conference manager for its MC3810 multiservice access unit. The new offering is intended to manage H.320 or H.323 video bandwidth and guarantee quality of service for video on a converged network. The multimedia conference manager costs $6,495 and is available now.

Standards supported

For packetized voice, Cisco unveiled voice-over-frame relay and voice-over-IP software enhancements for its 2600 and 3600 series routers.

The software supports Frame Relay Forum standards FRF.11 and FRF.12 for multivendor interoperability and lets users bypass tandem PBXs for voice switching.

For voice over IP, the software supports integrated voice response and Remote Authentication Dial-In User Service features for user authentication.

It is also designed to improve scalability, Cisco says. The company also unveiled an ISDN Basic Rate Interface voice interface card for the 2600 and 3600 routers that provides a two-channel BRI connection to a PBX.

Lastly, Cisco's Network Implementation Service offering provides project management, engineering, staging and installation of packet telephony and multiservice campus networks.

Pricing for this service is on a per-unit basis. The service is available now.

Cisco: (408) 526-4000