Smoothstone’s Converged IP Cloud Expanding To Europe

Smoothstone IP Communications, an innovator in the new field of cloud-based unified communications, is expanding its service portfolio to include European locations. Could this be the start of a cloud that covers the Earth?

You bet it is. Thanks to international MPLS connectivity, it is now feasible to port any IP service to anywhere on Earth. That’s the beauty of MPLS networks. They take whatever you’ve got and transport it anywhere users can connect to the network.

Well, it’s not quite that simple. There’s a matter of scaling involved. Servers that easily handle the load for a limited universe of users in a regional area can become quickly overloaded when a tsunami of new users joins the network from a global footprint. Likewise, the core network has to have the bandwidth needed to handle the increased traffic without degrading latency, jitter and packet loss characteristics.

Smoothstone has addressed these issues, partially by expanding their cloud-based applications platform into several European data centers. That removes a potential bottleneck that could form if all packets needed to be processed through a single U.S. data center. It also makes call termination to off-net European phones easier and less costly.

One of the advantages that Smoothstone touts for moving enterprise voice services to their IP cloud is that internal phone calls stay on the network even when those calls are transatlantic to the UK, France, Germany or Switzerland. It’s only when calls need to be terminated to the PSTN (Public Switched Telephone Network) that connection costs are incurred. The more local the call termination, the cheaper it is. That argues for geographically diverse data centers and central office equipment to support telephony in the cloud.

What is also significant is that Smoothstone is not merely another VoIP service provider. The heart of their competitive portfolio is unified IP communications services. That means converged voice and data services to gain the cost advantages that come from deploying one network among business locations rather that separate telephone and data networks. Convergence can be a tricky proposition for time sensitive applications like network voice. If not done properly, VoIP calls can degrade into clipped and garbled conversations. Calls can even be dropped in extreme cases.

MPLS networking is especially suited to supporting converged voice and data. Not only are multiple protocols supported, but these privately owned and operated networks are carefully managed to ensure Quality of Service (QoS) at all times. For companies that want to unify their communications among multiple locations, it’s hard to argue against a solid MPLS core network. Now smoothstone is taking a leadership position to expand the very same converged services to include European cities. By the end of 2010, they expect to be providing applications and services across Europe.

Is your company still suffering from last century’s networking solutions? Have you been stymied by the process of creating unified communications that delivers the quality of service you require? What you need is the right provider with assets and resources to deliver the right solution for your size of operation and be able to seamlessly scale up as your business level increases. See how Smoothstone and other cloud networking services can provide the connectivity you need at a cost that makes sense.

Why Are VoIP and SIP Trunking So Popular?

If your old PBX system is getting long in the tooth and it’s time to start considering a replacement, you’ll do well to look into replacing that PBX with an IP PBX and those phone lines with a SIP Trunk.

Why are these new technologies catching on so fast when traditional telecom equipment and analog or ISDN phone lines work just fine? The answer is new features combined with cost savings while maintaining call quality.

You might be getting a headache right now, thinking about the capital investment and installation expense required to change out all those phone sets that are still getting the job done. Breathe easy. You don’t have to swap out any of your old phones unless you want to.

There are good reasons why you might like a new VoIP SIP phone. For one thing, they plug right into your computer network and don’t need separate telephone wiring of their own. You manage them like any other device on the network. Since a SIP phone can plug into any network jack just like a PC, it’s much easier to manage moves, adds and changes. You want to move to a different office? No problem. Just take your phone with you and plug it in to the network jack in the new office. The phone still has its own MAC address that identifies it as yours, so it doesn’t matter where on the network it sits.

But what about the old phones you want to keep? Just connect their phone wires to your new IP PBX. You’ll need to order interface cards with FSX ports to make the connections, but the IP PBX doesn’t mind a bit. You can even have a mix of SIP phones connected to your LAN and analog phones connected to FSX ports. The IP PBX will treat them all as individual telephones. Of course, the SIP phones may have extra features like displays or the ability to coordinate with computer terminals, but they’re still telephones.

By the way, you don’t necessarily need to have a PBX system on your premises anymore. VoIP has opened the door to hosted PBX, where the call switching hardware is located at an offsite supplier who provides telephone services at an attractive price. It’s a way to avoid the often hefty capital investment required for a new in-house IP PBX system.

VoIP telephony has become popular in business environments with lots of phones, primarily because of the ability to converge the LAN network to support voice as well as data. That makes it possible to keep the phone system truly off the public network for all locations that are reached by the corporate LAN. It’s only when you need to talk to outside parties that you need public phone lines. Or do you?

Yes, you do. But you don’t have to provide those lines yourself. What a SIP trunk does is extend your internal network to a service provider who then connects to the public phone system. Economy of scale generally means that telephone calls over a SIP trunking service are less expensive that terminating them yourself to analog phone lines or ISDN PRI trunks connected to the phone company. SIP trunking services also generally provide dedicated Internet service over the same SIP trunk. After all, it is just a network extension. As long as quality of service is maintained, you can get your telephone and Internet services from the same provider over a single SIP trunk and realize a cost savings.

Are you interested in exploring the expanded performance and cost savings available with VoIP and SIP Trunking services? You may be surprised at what you can get for much less than you are paying now. Enter a quick Enterprise VoIP quote request now with a brief description of your needs and you’ll get a fast response and personalized service.

MPLS VPN Advantages

MPLS VPN networks are more and more in demand by companies needing to link multiple geographically diverse business locations. These may be across town, across the country or around the world... or any combination. Let’s take a look at why MPLS networks are becoming so popular.

Branch offices, retail franchise operations, warehouses, factories and medical centers are no longer isolated entities. Once, the public telephone system was enough to tie related locations together. That phone system was also pressed into service to transmit information rapidly using FAX and then dial-up Internet access. Broadband Internet using a dedicated high bandwidth wireline service followed for direct digital transmission. Other dedicated lines were used as secure point to point connections for sharing sensitive business documents.

Some companies desired more complex networking arrangements, linking every location to every other location in a fully meshed wide area network. One way to do that is to roll your own star network with point to point dedicated lines to the main office. Frame Relay networks came about as a way to outsource all that networking and the high cost of so many dedicated lines. But Frame Relay was never planned to run at the bandwidths we need today.

What MPLS VPN networks do is provide a private networking solution that outsources the problem of connecting many diverse locations. The cost of operating the network is shared among the user base, which makes it very cost effective for each user compared to running their own completely private network.

Unlike the Internet, a MPLS VPN has security built-in and performance characteristics of the network are carefully controlled. This is especially important for companies that want to converge their voice, data and video networks into a single network that can carry all traffic. There are big cost advantages in network convergence. But it’s all for naught unless you can guarantee quality of service for all your traffic. MPLS networks have Class of Service mechanisms to ensure that bandwidth, latency, jitter and packet loss are carefully controlled.

MPLS VPN security is based on using a proprietary tag or label switching protocol in place of standard IP routing. As soon as IP packets are received by the provider edge router, they are inspected and a MPLS label is attached. It’s that label that is used to route the packets while they are on the network. It’s removed as they exit the network. It’s like the MPLS network is speaking a foreign language within its service footprint.

MPLS networks are also easily scalable. If you build your own network from T1 lines or DS3 services, it can be a nightmare to upgrade bandwidth across the network. With an MPLS solution, you simply request additional resources from the service provider. You can also add or delete service locations much easier than you may be able to with long haul point to point line services. You only need an access connection to the MPLS “cloud” which is at the service provider’s nearest point of presence.

Can an MPLS VPN network be advantageous to your business? Get recommendations and competitive price quotes for MPLS VPN services now.

Easy Convergence for Small Businesses

Convergence, the merging of voice and data networks, is a technology being pursued by large and medium size companies as a cost savings initiative. The idea is that operating two separate networks for telephone and Internet costs more than a combined or converged network.

The advantages of converged networks are clearer for new installations than retrofits. Right now, the solutions seem also to be targeted at enterprises with hundreds to thousands of employees. But what about smaller professional offices, retailers, manufacturers? Is there a way for them to save money with voice and data convergence?

Actually, there is a solution that is works very well for smaller companies that use half a dozen to a dozen outside telephone lines and broadband Internet access. That's the right scale for thousands of different types of businesses from auto dealerships to real estate offices to plastics factories. It's called Integrated T1 service.

You may not of heard of this service, even if you know about T1 lines. Companies that are heavy users of local and long distance telephone services know that T1 digital trunk lines can save money by replacing many individual analog business phone lines. T1 PRI service offers the perfect match for most business PBX telephone systems. T1 Dedicated Internet service offers superior stability and reliability compared to shared solutions such as DSL and Cable broadband. But what's Integrated T1?

The Integrated term means much the same as converged. T1 Integrated service integrates or combines voice and data service on a single T1 line. While many medium size companies simply one or more T1 lines for their telephone system and a separate T1 service for broadband Internet access, that solution gets a bit pricey for smaller companies. It may also result in telephone line capacity that is never really used. By combining telephone and Internet on the same line, you get a service and price that are optimized for smaller operations.

With Integrated T1 service, there is a single T1 line that runs between your company and your service provider. There's a device called an IAD or Integrated Access Device at each end that provides the interface. The IAD connects to your phone system to provide 3, 6, or up to 12 outside lines. It also connects to your router to provide the broadband Internet connection.

So how can one line do double duty? The IAD manages the bandwidth of the line. Many times the IAD converts both voice and data to a packet protocol with Quality of Service controls. Telephone calls have priority so that voice quality is always maintained. Dynamic bandwidth management uses whatever line capacity that is not currently dedicated to phone conversations for Internet access. By limiting the number of phone lines supported to a maximum of 12, you are assured of always having adequate Internet bandwidth.

There are no special equipment requirements for customers of Integrated T1 line service. The provider supplies and manages the IAD that is located on your premises. You keep the telephone and network equipment you now have but enjoy the cost savings and high reliability of this professional telecom service.

Can you benefit from Integrated T1 or other competitive wireline services for your company? Find out quickly and easily with our T1 service pricing and availability tool at T1 Rex.