Foreword: This whitepaper discusses the advantages of using an efficient embedded platform and open standards software for the best VoIP deployment for small to mid sized businesses. The combination of PSTN interface technology, open standards and open source IP PBX components results in a very high level of features and functionality at an affordable price.

The embedded platform enables traditional PSTN connections plus VoIP service provider connections that can create affordable redundant business communications applications. The rich feature set, extreme reliability, support for open standards and simplicity of a web based user interface extends users greater control of the unified communications feature set.

Nick Branica

Introduction
The business communications market is experiencing an important transformation due to the introduction of technologies such as Internet Protocol, open standards (SIP) and open source software. Hybrid Key systems have been the primary solution for small and medium sized businesses. Large enterprise organizations have been deploying IP communications applications for several years as technology advances.  With the cost of these applications being driven down by high quality software components developed in the open source community, the small business now has access to this enterprise class IP Communications functionality.  IP open standards based communications systems are now accepted, and low cost IP products with the same functionality of more expensive enterprise systems are available to drive a growing number of applications in business that were just not available in the past.

Open standards telephony solutions are largely software-based and can use industry standard hardware. This whitepaper addresses the drivers behind the new availability of enterprise class business communications technology and how it enables small to mid sized business to take advantage of this robust technology. The continuing trend for telephony functions to be open standards based, continues to drive prices lower.

Why businesses are migrating to IP
In the enterprise and small business market, telephony has long been dominated by equipment vendors, primarily for PBX or Key systems. The traditional systems have been extremely reliable, and businesses have come to rely on them for their mission-critical voice connections to the public switched telephone network. In the traditional circuit switched telephony world, people were connected by dedicated circuits that were designed over 100 years ago.  Business voice communication was separate from data networks and consisted of proprietary platforms that required specialized expertise to install and maintain.  Voice was a dedicated service and only available from the local monopoly. Business telephone systems were built around this circuit switched system. Until recently, phone systems were not integrated with data networks, and there were no alternatives to traditional systems for voice.

While these conditions have given rise to telephony systems that work very well for their intended purpose, businesses have paid a high price. Aside from being costly, these systems were proprietary and closed. Each vendor had their own technology and competing systems were not compatible with each other. Vendors retained full control, leaving customers totally dependent on them for fixes, enhancements and upgrades. In short, acquisition costs were high, support was expensive and hard to find, and feature sets were fixed.

The introduction of IP (Internet Protocol) has changed the business telephony market on many levels. IP offers an alternative to TDM for voice, and with it, IP based solutions for telephony systems. One of the reasons large enterprises are drawn to IP telephony is the potential efficiency gained from combining the voice and data functions in one single organization. All businesses recognize the economic benefits of IP telephony, especially in areas such as toll bypass, reduced trunking costs and reducing costs for moves, adds and changes by gaining control of their system.

IP is flexible, and has enabled the development of a wide variety of innovative telephony solutions that are gaining acceptance among businesses. It is now possible for businesses to have the richness of an enterprise class PBX feature set without paying PBX prices. Vendors are introducing less costly IP PBX systems to help their installed base migrate to IP, as well as bring PBX functionality to a new set of customers they could not previously reach with a TDM-based PBX.  For instance, multi site businesses that could not cost justify networking their locations together as one system now find that application affordable.

Similarly, service providers are now offering SIP Trunking as a way for IP PBX customers to save money on their telecommunications services and increase Internet bandwidth. An IP PBX system is now affordable for businesses with as few as 5 telephones. Getting more features and performance at a lower cost is attractive for any business, and these developments indicate that IP technology has matured to the point where we can see the end of the traditional circuit switched PBX as we had known it.

The rise of open standards telephony
Most IP-based solutions have been targeted at the large business PBX market for a number of reasons. The installed base is quite large, and these enterprises have been willing and capable of investing significant capital in high performance telephony systems. Eventually, all TDM PBX deployments will transition to IP.  This process is well under way expected to take several years to be completed.

The enterprise PBX market is substantial, especially in terms of the revenue opportunity for PBX manufacturers. The new generation of IP communications products and features has been targeted at this lucrative segment of the market where big budgets are the norm. This initial drive into the larger enterprise market for IP communications has resulted in expensive cost prohibitive systems that are not appropriate for all businesses.  The traditional telecommunications manufacturers have excluded all but the higher end of the market until now. 

These conditions set the stage for open standards telephony. Over the past several years, open source software has gained considerable acceptance throughout the enterprise environment and more recently has been applied to telephony. The inherent appeal of open source is lower cost and enterprise grade features.  With Open standards and open source software now highly acceptable in the marketplace, the challenge is to make it affordable to small and mid sized businesses. There are millions of small businesses that cannot afford an IP PBX but would certainly desire its feature set.

An IP PBX provides a tremendous feature set that allows businesses to take advantage of a new set of tools far beyond the traditional business telephone system.

Table 1 -- Key features making open standards IP PBX telephony attractive to businesses

Open standards telephony solutions have two primary components -- software and hardware. IPitomy has developed two platforms for IP PBX systems.  The IP1000 is designed for businesses with up to 50 extensions.  The IP1500 is designed for up to 150 extensions.  Both systems run the same IP PBX software. 

The IP1000 is based upon a highly optimized powerful embedded platform that includes a router/firewall and two analog extensions for fax machines and other analog devices and two connections for traditional telephone lines and expansion capabilities for many more lines.  The IP1000 can connect to SIP based carriers creating a low cost communications application with all of the features of a large enterprise system at a fraction of the price.  The simplicity of the user interface allows users to benefit from cost savings by making system changes without the complications of training or expensive on-site service calls.

The IP1500 IP PBX system is designed for larger business with connection options for up to 4 T1 lines or up 48 analog lines. The basic enterprise class functionality is the same with much larger capacity for voice message storage, more memory and increased processor power.  The IPitomy family of IP PBX systems epitomizes the value of reliable software and open standards and the wide range of feature functionality now available in a scalable environment.

In the transitional telecommunications environment, connections to the traditional telephone network are still desirable to create redundant functionality in the case of network issues.  It is now possible to back up the telephone line connections with high quality SIP Trunks that can take over in the case of a telephone line failure or visa versa. This redundancy failover was not possible a few years back and is an important benefit for business continuity in case of unavoidable business interruptions.

How Business communications applications are evolving
The evolution from traditional circuit switched telephone systems to highly advanced IP PBX systems is resulting in an interesting phenomenon.    As technology improves, the true nature of technological advancements becomes apparent.  The true promise of high technology is to automate complex tasks and make things easier.  That promise has been realized in the IP PBX paradigm. 

Years of familiarity with web based architecture, Google Searching and Windows operating systems, has created a business user who has grown beyond simply using his telephone to make a phone call.  This evolving knowledge has improved users understanding of technology.  The web based interface for an IP PBX system is a familiar tool to most users who have had a PC for the past 10 years.  Now that user can control some important elements of their telecommunications systems that can enhance the way they work, reduce costs and improve business performance.

With an IP PBX system, users can control when and where their calls are sent, how to receive messages, see who is available or on the phone at a glance and create a large conference for a business presentation with a few keystrokes. In the past, most of the above would have required an expensive service call or an expensive add on component to a proprietary phone system.  Now all of these features and more are combined in a single platform that is so easy to use that every feature can be exploited instead of remaining hidden in the mysterious proprietary black box in the closet.

Avoiding obsolescence
Standards based systems utilizing the SIP protocol protects against obsolescence by their very nature.  The use of standards based telephones allows a level of protection not provided by proprietary telephone sets.  The biggest part of a communications application investment is in the telephones.  If the telephones are open standards and based upon the SIP protocol, they can be deployed with any SIP IPPBX in contrast to a proprietary telephone that will only work with the manufacturers PBX system.  The purchase of a proprietary system virtually guarantees that the phones and PBX will be obsolete before the end of its useful life.  As IP PBX systems evolve and present many more innovative features and benefits, the value of the telephones will endure.

Many aspects of telephony are becoming software-based, and open standards will continue to reshape what is possible in telephony, especially so long as processing power continues to increase and costs continue to fall.

The business IP telephony market has clearly progressed since the days of proprietary hardware for narrowly defined business telecommunications requirements.

PBX systems manufactured by legacy telecom behemoths have long controlled the market. This is beginning to be disrupted with the introduction of IP PBXs and the entry of data vendors such as Cisco into the market. The open standards movement has further accelerated the transition by introducing software-based IP PBX systems that bypass the hardware PBX vendors altogether. In terms of price, the market has also seen rise of open source IP PBX software that has world class big company performance at a price any business can afford.

New companies such as IPitomy, with its low cost, highly efficient platforms based on open standards, are showing the way towards highly integrated and easy to use IP PBX systems that never existed before. Innovation and opportunity have been the real catalyst behind this trend as the market is clearly disrupted for traditional PBX equipment manufacturers.  This market transition is creating the kind of potential advance in benefits for business that has not been seen since the introduction of the PC.

Conclusions
Open standards are essential to the small to mid sized business in taking advantage of the transition from the proprietary business telecommunications systems to the new and efficient IP PBX systems.  The IP PBX system with an efficient and powerful open standards platform will lead the way to a new explosion of business communications efficiency.