The Year Of The IP PBX?
from the January 2001 issue of Business Communications Review, pp. 41–52

by Edwin E. Mier, founder; Kenneth M. Percy, senior technology analyst; and Uwe E. Bilger, senior test engineer at Mier Communications Inc., a network consultancy and product test center based in Princeton Junction, NJ. They can be reached at 609-275-7311.

Broad Diversity of Products
A year ago, when we conducted our first comparative review of IP PBXs, (see "PBXÑThe Next Generation?" BCR, January 2000), several systems effectively challenged classical PBXs with new, IP-based architectures. However, while priced either the same as or a bit more than traditional PBXs, the IP PBXs we tested last year generally supported smaller configurations, and not nearly the same scope of applications and features. That's not surprising since digital, TDM-based PBXs had a nearly two-decade head start.

So have IP PBXs narrowed the gap? Well, given the players and products in this year's lineup, there's not a straightforward answer.

For this latest round of tests, two of last year's participants—Shoreline Communications and Vertical Networks—returned with their latest wares and software versions. New this year are three vendors who are better known for TDM-based PBXs—Alcatel USA, Mitel Corp. and NEC America. All three were anxious to show off their approaches, which for the most part consisted of "IP enabling" their existing TDM-based switching-matrix designs.

Also new this year is Cisco Systems, with its AVVID IP Telephony System. Cisco has put its considerable clout into positioning this system as the technologically preferred approach to telephony for high-end customers—those requiring from 500 to 10,000 stations. Another new player this year is Sphere Communications, whose IP-centric Sphericall system can, the vendor says, scale up to 15,000 stations.

Table 1 shows how very different the salient characteristics of the different products are. This is why a BCR Best-in-Test scorecard—used in some articles to provide a quantitative, bottom-line comparison of tested products—has not been applied here.

 

Among the more notable differences are the systems' size and scalability, and support for IP phones and "softphones." The systems also differ radically in regard to their fully expanded topologies, as the following examples indicate.

NEC claims its NEAX 2400 systems can be networked to create a system of more than 17,000 stations. However, with IP phones—actually NEC's digital phones with plug-in IP modules—the maximum drops to 4,080 phones.
Sphere says that, with up to 15 Windows NT call-control servers, its system can handle up to 15,000 stations.
Cisco says a fully expanded AVVID system, with up to eight Windows 2000 call-control servers, can grow to 10,000 stations.
Alcatel says a single OmniPCX system, featuring a Unix-based call-control server, can handle 5,000 stations, or 4,000 if all IP phones, but that multiple systems can be networked to support a cumulative capacity of up to 50,000 stations.
Shoreline's system can handle a total of 1,200 ports, which includes stations and trunk channels. So with one trunk per four stations, up to 960 stations are supported.
Mitel recently upped the capacity of its Ipera 2000 to a maximum of 208 IP stations, via its latest software release.
Vertical addresses the lower end of this market, supporting a maximum of 84 stations.
Four of the systems tested—from Alcatel, Cisco, Mitel and NEC—support IP phones. However, only Alcatel and Cisco currently support powering of their IP phones "in line" over Category 5 LAN cabling. Vertical supports its own line of digital phones as well as analog stations, while Shoreline and Sphere currently support only analog phone sets.

Only Alcatel and Cisco currently offer "soft phones"—software that lets PC users perform all telephony operations via PCs equipped with an appropriate hand/headset and sound card. Both vendors offer versions for individual users and attendant consoles, but in Cisco's case, the softphone applications weren't supported on the then-shipping software release, CallManager v3.0(2). However, we separately tested individual and attendant-console softphone applications on a beta version of the next major software release, CallManager v3.0(5), which was scheduled to ship by year-end 2000.

Pricing for the different systems was equally varied. We asked the vendors to provide list pricing for "typical" configurations of up to 200 stations. These configuration prices were to include: all PBX features, full VOIP support, voice mail and management. All other, optional add-ons and software were not to be included.

Table 1 shows the U.S. list price for system configurations ranging from a low-end of 84 users (the maximum for Vertical's InstantOffice System) up to 200 stations (for Alcatel, Cisco, Mitel and Sphere). Per-port pricing starts at under $500: Mitel at $411, which included 200 IP phones, and Vertical at $414, with 84 analog ports but not including any analog phone sets. Shoreline's system comes in at $539, with 192 analog ports, but without any analog phone sets.

From that level, per-station prices jump to the $700–$800 range. Alcatel's $729 per-port price reflects a 200-station system with equal numbers of analog, digital and IP phones. Sphere's $735-per-port configuration includes 200 analog phone sets. And NEC's $795 per-port price represents a 192-station system with 96 analog and 96 IP phones.

At the high end of the systems tested is Cisco, with a $999 per-port price tag, based on a 200-port system and including 192 IP phones. This price includes Cisco Catalyst Layer-2 switching and Layer-3 IP routing equipment, because many Cisco IP-PBX system components—such as switch ports that line-power IP phones, analog and T1 gateways—come as modules that plug into a Cisco Catalyst chassis.

This is a key point: The data network infrastructure is as an integral element in Cisco's pricing and product package. If you already have the latest, state-of-the-art Catalyst 6500s in all your wiring closets, and if the 6500s have enough open slots, you can implement a Cisco AVVID IP-telephony network for less than $999 per port—probably around one-third less. But that's a couple of big ifs, and so for the purpose of this article, we have priced the system accordingly.