For a luxury hotel, being on the cutting edge carries some risk, but Timothy Kirwan, the hotel's managing director, says he believes the rich functionality provided by the IP phone system will pay off in guest satisfaction. "We're one of only two or three hotels in the country that have taken the plunge," Kirwan says. "It's a groundbreaking thing for our business."
Check out the Hotel Commonwealth at www.hotelcommonwealth.com, and listen to our interview with Stewart Randall and Timothy Kirwan at www.nwc.com/1416/1416p1.html.
For our cover package we partnered with BroadSoft, a leading provider of hosted communications platforms based in Gaithersburg, Md.
BroadSoft has adopted the SIP standard in the architecture of its communications products (see www.broadsoft.com). We took advantage of the proxy, registration and PSTN gateway services provided by the company's BroadWorks platform to implement our testing of SIP phones, and we made use of its Web-based provisioning software as well.
Founded in 1998, BroadSoft delivers a carrier-class platform that has enabled companies like Telstra, the main carrier in Australia, to provide advanced IP Centrex applications. BroadSoft also provides the infrastructure for hosted PBX services at Computer Sciences Corp. and Science Applications International Corp.
Any application accessible on an IP network is a potential security risk. SIP phones and servers are no exception: A number of vulnerabilities, affecting a long list of vendors, have been discovered; see www.cert.org/advisories/CA-2003-06.html.
At minimum, limit access to any SIP device. Also, purchase products from vendors that specialize in securing SIP. For example, SecureLogix Corp., which won our Well-Connected Product of the Year Award, is working on a device designed to secure SIP environments, and BroadSoft uses a product from Kagoor Networks to do the same.
If jumping into a SIP VoIP project with both feet gives you jitters, a company
called Vonage can help. Vonage provides SIP-based local phone service to
residences and small businesses that have broadband Internet access. We figured
this would be a good way to test the SIP waters, so we tried the service behind
a RoadRunner cable connection. Vonage offers local phone numbers nearly
nationwide. We signed on, used the service for a number of conference calls, and
found the quality surprisingly good considering all audio traffic had to travel
from behind a cable modem across the Internet to Vonage's gateway and the
PSTN.
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