twork AppliancesThe next wave in IP telephony products will come in the form of stand-alone network appliances resembling Ethernet hubs. To this end, Cisco recently announced that they are adding H.323 compliant IP voice gateway capability to their high-end router product line. By adding a module to their routers, you will be able to combine internetworking and IP telephony services into a single box. A number of other vendors, including Shoreline Teleworks and Touchwave Communications, are working on hybrid switching products which, in effect, make PBXs obsolete. These products come in the form of boxes that resemble an Ethernet hub. Each box is connected via RJ14 wiring to outside phone lines and telephone extensions and via RJ45 to a company's Ethernet network. Each hub is essentially a small PBX with voice mail/attendant, etc. When the hubs are connected to a company's IP network, these small systems talk to each other across the network and behave like one large system. In effect, what you have is a distributed PBX, which uses a company's IP network to haul telephone calls between switching nodes. Other vendors are working on stand-alone devices, which will just do POTS to H.323 conversion in an appliance form factor. This approach will make a lot of sense for small offices which do not require or want a dedicated server for POTS to IP conversion, and for larger companies wishing to replace their central PBX with many internetworked mini-PBXs. Multi-Purpose NIC/Sound CardsFor companies that want to give a few people within an organization IP telephony capability, multi-purpose NIC cards are a logical way to go. These cards are special purpose audio and/or network cards designed for IP telephony. These products sacrifice scalability for a low price point. However, since these products are typically installed in an individual user's machine, scalability is not really an issue. One especially noteworthy product in this space is th...
