Hosted Services: January 2008 Archives

Toshiba Announces SIP Trunking Capability

By Rick McCharles on January 9, 2008 7:52 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Yesterday, Toshiba announced that it has added SIP Trunking capabilities to its Strata(R) CIX(TM) family of IP business communication systems.

Toshiba begins its nationwide rollout of SIP Trunking capabilities with SIP carriers Cbeyond of Atlanta, Ga., and American Broadband Services (ABS) of Fresno, Calif., and will expand to additional carriers during 2008.

Coupling the product's IP Trunking capabilities with the two carriers is a smart move by Toshiba since potential customers will know that they can deploy a SIP Trunking-based solution nationally. In addition, it removes any concerns around interoperability and related support issues.

Key product features and benefits include:

Offers ISDN-like features over a data connection
Eliminates the need to buy separate circuit cards for voice
and data
Potentially eliminates the need and cost of a separate service
Eliminates "wasted bandwidth" of unused PRI channels
Allows bandwidth to be used for data when no calls are active
Offers ability to host other services in addition to SIP Trunking, including IP Stations, SIP Stations, Toshiba's Strata Net IP, Voice Mail and ACD resources
In addition to SIP Trunks, Toshiba's MIPU cards also support IP stations, SIP stations, Strata Net channels, and applications.

Other benefits related to SIP Trunking, and not mentioned in the press release, is that IP Telephony solutions can be deployed with enhanced redundancy and are much easier to scale. For a list of SIP Trunking benefits please see my previous article on the subject SIP Trunking Will Displace PRI..

Rick McCharles
Unified Communications Consultant, Toronto, Ontario, Canada