In today’s economic climate, Aculab says the traditional method of moving to new technologies by ‘rip and replace’ seems to have outlived its day. “For both financial and acceptability reasons, moving to new technology now means a slow, measured approach together with a well thought through solution to integrate existing legacy equipment – without losing any existing legacy functionality” explained Tim Joint, Commercial Manager for the ApplianX products, “The ApplianX IP Gateway offers extensibility by allowing the easy addition of IP solutions or networks to legacy PBX installations.”
The ApplianX IP Gateway software now includes support for Call Back When Free / Next Available (CBWF/NA) allowing for two or more DPNSS or Q.SIG enabled PBXs to be connected using a SIP trunk or connection. An ApplianX IP Gateway would connect to each PBX and convert the traditional TDM message through SIP and back to the other PBX. This is typically used within multi-site corporate locations, where a colleague is called on a different site but the line is busy, CBWF is enabled and the caller’s phone will ring when the other call ends. This is a traditional PBX interworking function being enabled within a SIP environment for the first time.
There are many new security features available with the v2.10 release of software including Secure RTP (SRTP) and SIPS (Transport Layer Security over SIP). SIPS secures the SIP signalling channel by authenticating and encrypting the call control channel using TLS. SRTP adds confidentiality and authentication to the voice traffic enabling an improved layer of security without degradation in voice quality.
Fax compatibility is now provided for with T.30 fax pass through, fax calls can be encoded as audio in a VoIP environment and passed through the gateway. This combined with the traditionally strong features of the ApplianX IP Gateway, such as minimised packet losses, jitter buffer control and accurate clock synchronisation ensures highly reliable fax transmissions.
The ApplianX IP Gateway can now register to other devices within the IP network enabling a more controlled environment. For instance, the ApplianX IP Gateway may register with a session border controller allowing for complete control of the network and only accepting calls which are genuine.