As a large proportion of people worldwide are increasingly favouring the Internet as a means of communicating with others, it should come as no great surprise to see it being adapted to encompass that other technological marvel of our age, the telephone.

Once again, the Internet has taken another step forward in its evolution, this time with the arrival of voIP (voice over Internet Protocol). By using the Internet as a signal carrier, this system allows users to make and receive free or cheap telephone calls anywhere in the world. Whilst voIP is still in its fairly early stages, it is however showing all the signs of being a huge success.

Apart from a computer, there is only a minimal amount of equipment required to access this service. Users would have to route calls through a voIP provider, then what is needed is a fast connection such as broadband together with a telephone and voIP adapter and you?re up and running. Calls are then made and received in the normal way.

This latest technology whilst advancing the capability of the Internet even more could simultaneously be signalling the onset of a decline in conventional telecoms companies, who may find that they will have to adapt rapidly to keep up and compete in what could turn out to be another communications revolution. There are at present quite a number of voIP providers already in existence who have obviously seen the potential in this system and taken early action to be a part of it from the outset.

Is it a possibility then that the telephone could become the number-one method of communication again and eventually gain superiority over email? One of the main attractions of email is the fact that apart from the standard ISP charges it is otherwise free to use. It is therefore hardly a shock that since its inception email has relegated the art of letter writing to third place with the telephone coming second as a preferred communication medium.

So, is all that due to change with the arrival of voIP? Will free or cheap telephone calls compliment or outstrip email usage in the next year or two? That remains to be seen. To the far-sighted among us, voIP is a natural progression that was bound to happen sooner or later. To the rest of us it is an exciting new concept that will not cost a fortune to operate, a benefit many will welcome with open arms.

There is however, a certain amusing irony in the fact that as the very system that contributed to the decline in telephone usage, the Internet could now turn out to be the biggest aid to its revival. The constant growth and ever-increasing abilities of the Internet has most of us asking the question, how much further can it go? As far as our imaginations will take us, would for the time being be as good an answer as any.

One of the reasons VoIP is so poplar is it affords users multiple methods for placing a phone call. Here are some choices you have when you use VoIP services:

Buy an IP phone

You can purchase a special phone that looks much like an ordinary phone, but offers an Ethernet connector. This means you can connect the phone to your router and make IP calls easily from your computer once hooked up correctly. Developers are also currently working on Wi-Fi versions of these phones, which will allow consumers to place calls from anywhere Wi-Fi is available.

Connect from one computer to another

This is probably the least complicated way to take advantage of VoIP. Simply connect computer to computer to the person you want to call. You will need some equipment, including a microphone (so you can talk to someone), speakers (to hear them) and a sound card. You’ll probably also want a fast internet connection. Other than that, use this method and you can make free long distance calls anywhere in the world.

Use an analog telephone adaptor

An analog telephone adaptor or ATA lets you connect your computer or Internet connection to an ordinary phone so you can take advantage of VoIP technology. This converter will change analog signals into digital information your computer can interpret. All you have to do is plug a cable connecting your phone to your computer and you are ready to go!

Why is the regional bell operating companies dropping the rates on their DSL residential service? Easy, to gain more customers. Ok, makes sense. But let’’s look a little closer.

First off, VoIP is making a major push into our homes. I for one have 2 lines in my home. One for business and one for home use. I use VoIP on my business line and my local provider on the other. I also use cable broadband access. Not only is it faster, but when the time comes I can switch my home phone to VoIP and not effect my broadband connection. Yes, the government is mandating the use of ”naked” DSL or DSL without phone service. Expect that in a few years (maybe).

There’’s the first gotcha. Choose the local telco for DSL access and eliminate the possibility of using VoIP as your primary phone line. Yes you can get VoIP as long as you continue your local telephone service as well. Remember, DSL comes into your
home on your phone line. Deactivate your phone line and without naked DSL you disconnect your internet as well.

Remember deregulation of the 80′’s? Now the RBOC’’s (regional bell operating companies) need to open their territories up to competition. Ok. I was putting together a quote for local/long distance for a small business. Luckily they had no need or want
for internet access. I ran the numbers for both our local RBOC as well as a competitor. The competitors? prices beat the RBOC’’s hands down. But guess what? The competitor is unable to run DSL (even if my customer wanted it). Gotcha again. RBOC’’s carry a mighty sword

So, if I stick with my RBOC, I can”t use VoIP as my primary phone service. If I switch to a competitor, I may not be able to get DSL access. Hmmmm conflict or gotcha?

In all fairness, I”ve sold DSL service from RBOC’’s as well as other ISP’’s. The service is fine. Many of my family members use DSL and are very happy with it. It’’s really not the DSL service itself that gets me frustrated at times, but rather the lack of choices. Why not use the lower cost DSL access and VoIP as a primary phone line? Because the large RBOC’’s don”t want you to, that’’s why. Oh sure the government is getting involved, but we”ll have to wait a few more years. (Maybe longer)

This short article is not intended solely for the informed. Many people are aware of the conflicts, FCC mandates and issues. The lines between phone usage/internet access/television are becoming more and more blurred. Keep a open mind; don”t fall
into the marketing traps of the major players. Understand the impact of your technology buying decisions. One just may effect the other. Go DSL, possibly loose VoIP. Switch to an RBOC competitor and quite possibly loose your existing DSL (or ANY DSL for that matter)

Go for cable internet access? I for one would really like to see the cable companies begin to drop their rates. They offer a good service at faster speeds. Unfortunately with the push for DSL (from come on offers starting at around per month) to standard monthly rates around -30 per month, it’’s certainly cheaper than cable internet, which is about -47 per month.

What I usually tell my customers is to look at the big picture. Not long ago customers wanted high speed internet at the lowest possible cost. Now what I usually tell my customers, friends and family is to also evaluate their phone usage as well.

One purchase can affect the other. If there is no pressure or need or want to convert to VoIP, then broadband DSL should be just fine. Then there’’s the people with teenage kids or kids in college. Their phone bills tend to be higher. In some cases the cost may be much higher. If VoIP is going to be on their horizon, then I would recommend staying away from DSL. Do the math. Yes, you may pay a higher per month cost for cable internet service (say a month more) but what would you save on your phone bill by using VoIP? If your phone bill is a month, which you cut to a month using VoIP, it’’s a wash. The extra savings on the phone bill offsets the higher cost of internet access. If your phone bill is higher, then you start to save more money.

Look at the big picture when deciding your broadband access needs.

One of the reasons VoIP is so successful and advantageous is it uses packet switching technology rather than circuit switching technology to provide phone services. Most phone companies use circuit switching technology. Packet switching technology is different in that it allows multiple phone calls to occur within the same space a single phone call would occupy using a circuit network.

This means less transmission time is used and less expense is incurred for the same phone call placed using packet switching versus circuit switching technology. How does packet switching work? Basically you pick up the receiver or initiate a phone call, which sends a signal. After dialing a phone number the tones are converted into digital data your computer can read and stored temporarily until the VoIP company sends the phone number you punch in to their call processor. The processor maps the phone number to an IP address. That is nothing more than someone’s computer address, then connects the two computers together using a soft switch device.

Your Computer and VoIP

Your computer is basically acting as an intermediary, passing voice messages much like it would an e-mail to another user. You can talk for any length of time necessary, and all the while your computer and VoIP software will be transmitting data packets of information from one computer to the other, translating analog information into digital virtually automatically. The entire process takes just seconds and allows a higher volume of calls than a traditional phone line would.

I”m a manager in a small UK company whose portfolio also includes looking after the company’’s computers and telecommunications. On a daily basis I am contacted by telecom firms asking me if they can take ”just 10 minutes of my time to save me 60% on my phone bills or similar”. Now these guys are not selling VoIP but something called carrier pre-select. That’’s when you pay your line rental to one company and pay for your call charges to another, who will charge you at a lower rate than the line rental company.

I have to say these guys are seasoned telesales people. They know every trick in the book to keep you talking, a few haven”t even got the hint from my standard line of ”I need to finish this conversation now and hang up the phone”. Anyway to get me a better line to tell these guy’’s I”d love to be able to say ”we?re on VoIP, and you can”t compete with those prices”. However, I can”t use that line yet. Why? Because my ISP connection uptime is not reliable enough to switch.

A few weeks ago after a thunderstorm we lost full ADSL connection in one of our branches for three days. Now if that weren?t bad enough to lose e-mail capability and the various web sites crucial to the running of our business, if we had lost phone capability as well then as a recruitment agency we would have lost both business and customers.

This is not the only service outage we have experienced, I would approximate that once a month we can expect to lose service for at least 3 hours in one of our branches. You might suggest that I move to a more reputable supplier, however we are with one of the largest and most well known ISP’’s in the UK, so we do not really have the option of changing to a different supplier. Until the ISP?s can guarantee a better continuation of service then I shan?t be recommending VoIP to our Managing Director for his business.

Telecom Industry Transition: WiFi, VoIP, WiMax – The Wireless Age is Already Here

VoIP on WiMax will make the latest 3G technologies obsolete before they are completely installed. The reason is because 3G cell phone technology is capable of 2Mbs while WiFi is at 11Mbs in bursts and WiMax will be even greater therefore 3G is not needed as VoIP over WiMax is going to provide more data, faster speeds and greater numbers of users. WiFi and WiMax may actually solve the goals of conquering the digital divide. There will be a small price for this disruptive technology. There will be small legal battles fought such as this one over territory with government agencies and private sector. In the WiFi Online Newsletter commenting on a Wall Street Journal Article we saw Verizon fighting with the City of Philadelphia over their city wide WiFi and if you think about it they do potentially have quite a bit to lose don’t they?

There will also be issues with frequency pollution from other uses in close proximity of the frequency band being sent out. There will be issues with the human biological system, birds, animals and pets. There will also layoffs caused by such disruption and some bluff layoffs to sway political intervention thru careful manipulation of ‘K-Street’ style guerilla lobbying. There will also be issues with first to market and frequency allocations from the FCC. There will be consumer complaints due to bandwidth being used up and services too slow for users.

There are already some heated battles going on with the use of power lines to deliver Internet to the home because it will disrupt Ham Operators. The layoffs in Telecom have been astronomical in recent years. New technologies while they give the industry new life, new directions to grow they also provide for some fierce competition between players. One of the most recent issues was the VoIP FCC ruling, which said that VoIP couldn’t be taxed by states, as it is an Internet Service not a phone service. This was a major ruling for the VoIP Industry and will add billions of dollars in capital from investment banks and venture capital firms.

Recently I was at a WiFi Verizon Hot Spot and there were six people with computers there, two playing video games on the Internet, One using VoIP another downloading a big file, needless to say surfing at any acceptable speed or collecting 1000 emails (most 90% SPAM) was out of the question. Although patrons have paid $ 19.95 per month for internet access there will be issues with speed and bandwidth as the Internet is soaked up by VoIP and excessive emails. WiMax promises to solve this problem with speeds of 75MB per second as opposed to the WiFi burst speeds of 11MB or the mobile satellite solutions at 1-2 MB per second. Still all of these solutions blow out of the water the old dial up speeds. 3G Wireless was thought to be the savior, yet with speeds on the very lowest end of the spectrum, even devices like the Blackberry (RIMM), or the AT & T iGO do not stand a chance on such services.

Right now 3G network is nearly complete and works good for phone calls and instant messaging, but is quite lacking for video or picture emailing. As new devices come out such as movie watching, music downloads, projection video, hologram messages, 3G, 4G even 5G and what some in the industry call 6G will not be able to use with the current 3G towers across the nation. Even with 1000:1 algorithm compression there is a limit on the devices and system. The Telecom Industry has taken a huge hit in the last five years with massive layoffs, accounting irregularities and overpriced bidding for frequency allocation, which amounted to investments based on pie in the sky wishful thinking potential consumer numbers even from a monopolistic standpoint, it was simply not possible. The frenzy to over pay for these frequencies was out of control and we saw the fallout occur as predicted by many an insider.

So how does the future look now? Well, all in all things are looking good, we have capital flows to new entrants, large corporations finding partners and re-investing profits in an industry which seems to have new life blood and can be called anything but static.

VoIP is an acronym for voice over internet protocol. A VoIP, in essence, is a computer phone that allows you to make phone calls from your computer to anyone in the world, e.g., PC to PC, PC to landlines, or PC to cell phones. The voice signal converts to data packets and travels across the internet through a VoIP platform, and then converts back to voice at the receiving end of the communication exchange. There is no delay in conversations / communications with 3WTel VoIP. Leading telecom experts are projecting that 75% of the world?s communications will be done on VoIP within the next several years.

What Kind of Equipment do I need?

You will need a computer with internet access and an inexpensive microphone if your computer does not have one built in. Although most VoIP providers require high speed internet connections, 3WTel offers VoIP on dial-up, DSL, and broadband connections.

How Can I Place Calls or Receive Calls?

Basically, the same way you would a regular phone, except on your PC. When you download a VoIP line on your computer, a phone usually appears on your screen. The computer phone acts like any other phone in that you can dial numbers on it from a pad, or click on a contact?s pre-programmed name, and press the call button. You will then hear the phone ringing to the party you have called and can talk to them when they accept the call, or leave a voicemail if they are not available.
When receiving a call, the phone will ring on your computer and you can click to accept the call and talk, or let it ring (based on the number of rings you have set up) and forward the caller to your voicemail.

What Kind of Features Does VoIP Have?

Typically a VoIP has voicemail with audio capabilities, three-way calling, text messaging, and contacts list. Some VoIP?s even have webcam capabilities. In addition, there is usually a button to click that can indicate to others when you are available, unavailable, away, or off line. (3WTel has all these features and many more, including real time call duration, missed call indicator, network quality meter, call waiting, do not disturb, hold, mute, etc.)

Who Can I Call?

Most reputable VoIP solutions providers limit PC to PC calls among their own subscribers for privacy purposes and so that the quality of sound is not compromised. (3WTel?s patented technology is available only between their own subscribers for both privacy purposes and their uncompromised quality of sound.)
Some VoIP providers require limiting PC to landlines or cell phones to their own subscribers. (3WTel does not limit PC to landlines or cell phones to their own subscribers.)

Advantages of VoIP

1. With VoIP, you have unlimited talk time to anyone in the world from PC to PC for a flat monthly rate ($ 5/month with 3WTel)
2. Most VoIP?s offer drastically reduced costs for calling PC to landlines (3.9 ? per minute in 200 countries with 3WTel)
3. Most VoIP?s offer reduced costs for calling PC to cell phones, however, prices vary depending on the cell phone carrier. (3WTel offers drastically reduced costs for calls from PC to cell phones and will let you know the cost before you place the call.)
4. Savings of up to 80% off current phone bills. (This is a given with 3WTel.)

What are the Costs for VoIP’’s?

1. Typically there is an enrollment fee which varies between $ 20.00 to hundreds of dollars (3WTel is $ 19.95)
2. Monthly fees, after enrollment, varies between $ 5.00 per month to $ 75.00 per month (3WTel is $ 5.00 per month)
3. If you do not have a microphone on your computer, you would have to purchase one. Cost is between $ 5.00 to $ 40.00.

Things to Watch Out for with VoIP Solution Providers

1. Hidden costs (there are none with 3WTel). Unsecure lines – meaning anyone can listen to your conversation because of shared servers or open platforms (3WTel has only secure lines that are on their own server, their own platform, encrypted, and their technology is patented)
2. Inability to be used with dial-up connections (3WTel VoIP can be used with dial-up connections)
3. Public listing of your name and/or phone number (3WTel subscriber names and numbers are confidential and not posted publicly)

The design is such that SIP clients use TCP and UDP port 5060 to connect the SIP servers and others SIP endpoints. The sole purpose of SIP uses are setting up and tearing down voice or video calls. Where session initiation is required, however, SIP is used as well. These include Event Subscription and Notification, Terminal mobility and so on. A lot of SIP-related RFCs actually define behaviour for such solutions. All voice/video communications are done over separate session protocols, like RTP.

SIP was tasked to provide a signaling and call setup protocol for IP-based communications that can support a superset of the call processing functions and features present in the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN). The SIP Protocol by itself, defines the focus of the call-setup and signaling. However, it has been designed to enable the building of these featured network elements called Proxy Servers and User Agents. As such, these are features that permit familiar telephone-like operations: dialing, ringing, hearing ring tones or busy signals. The implementation might be different but the behaviour is similar.

SIP enabled telephony networks can also implement many of the more advanced call processing features present in SS7 (Signaling System 7), though the two protocols themselves are different. SIP is a peer-to-peer protocol, characterized by highly complex central network architecture and dumb endpoints; therefore it requires only a very simple core network with intelligence distributed to the network edge, embedded. The features of SIP are implemented as compared to traditional SS7 features, which are implemented in the network.

SIP is characterized by its proponents as having roots in the IP community rather than the telecom industry although many other VoIP signaling protocols exist. While the H. 323 VoIP protocol has been traditionally more associated with the ITU, SIP has been standardized and governed primarily by the IETF. The two organizations have endorsed both protocols in some fashion.

SIP is like HTTP and shares some of its design principles as well. Things like readable by humans and request-response structured. Codes like ‘404 not found’ are used as well. SIP is much simpler than H. 323. However, some would counter that while SIP has a goal for simplicity, its current state is as complex as H. 323. It is a stateless control, that some might point out, hence making it possible to fail like other difficult protocols as well. SIP and H. 323 are not limited to voice communication but can mediate any kind of communication session from voice to video, maybe even unrealized applications in future.

It is often said that understanding the problem is 90% of the solution, and VoIP security is no exception. It is fear of the unknown which is likely to elicit a knee-jerk reaction of panic, so the first step is to understand the threats and then classify them. We also have to ask the question: what does security mean to me and what does it mean to my customers?

Security to the customer means protecting their device and identity and the continuity of their service. Security to the service provider means protecting their network their revenue and their customers. In this feature we will look at service disruption and service theft.

Disruption

A service can be disrupted by breaking the user’s device, flooding the IP network with traffic or breaking the service provider’s infrastructure. Disruption is usually achieved through either Logic Attacks or Flood Attacks or Application Layer Attacks.

? Logic attacks exploit vulnerabilities in protocols or their implementations, e.g. Ping of death, Teardrop, Land etc.

? Flood attacks disable targets through traffic volume; a flood attack can originate from a single platform or from multiple platforms.

? Application Layer Attacks include: SIP-SPAM, and identity forging.

We can also divide the attacks into IP layer and SIP layer thus:

IP Logic Attack / IP Flood Attack
SIP Logic Attack / SIP Flood Attack
Application Layer attack

IP Logic Attacks

IP Logic attacks on SIP devices are no different to any other IP device; these include well known exploits such as: Ping of death, Teardrop, Land, Chargen and Out of sequence packets. All of these can disable a device which has not been fully tested to protect itself against these exploits.

IP Flood Attacks

IP Flood attacks include: SYN flood attack (TCP SYN Floods are one of the oldest DoS attacks in existence), Smurf Attack, Fraggle attack and the list goes on… These attacks are designed either to overcome the device by tying up resources or to simply overwhelm the network through shear weight of traffic.

SIP Logic Attacks

SIP logic attacks exploit weaknesses in SIP signalling implementations. Incomplete or incorrect fields, invalid message types can disable not only client devices but also core network devices. This type of attack can be countered by thorough testing of any devices against suites such at the IETF SIP Torture test developed through the SIPiT Events or the PROTOS Test-Suite, developed by the University of Oulu.

A more sophisticated attack can be to inject messages into a call to terminate it prematurely. This type of attack can be largely avoided by the use of strong authentication techniques, thus, the injected packet would not be authenticated and therefore would be rejected.

SIP Flood Attacks

SIP flood attacks exploit weaknesses higher up the communications stack that require more processing resources. As a consequence, it takes a much smaller flood to cause disruption. For example, one or more devices may send multiple registrations or call requests to a server.

Countering this type of disruption requires network based devices like Session Border Controllers (SBCs) to police the signalling stream and rate limit registrations and calls to Softswitches to predetermined limits. Acting as a proxy in the signalling stream the SBC can also filter inappropriate protocols, IP DoS attacks and invalid SIP messages. This helps compartmentalise the network and restricts any disruption to just one network segment.

Protect the User Device

These devices will typically be incapable of rate limiting and may be overrun by flood attacks. This means they are subject to both logic and flood attacks. Again the user device will benefit from the protection afforded by network based SBCs blocking DoS attacks and invalid SIP messages.

Service Theft

A simple example of service theft is to signal that a voice call it being made but exchange video data. This hits the service provider on two fronts: a) loss of revenue by billing for only a voice call and b) potential degradation in service quality for other users resulting in dissatisfaction.

The structure of a VoIP call with separate media and signalling streams has lead to some innovative ploys. For example, a rogue PC client which transports media in the RTCP quality monitoring stream, this is not policed in most networks. Another ploy is to transport media in the call signalling then failing the call before billing commences. Not only does this mean a free call but repeated call set can cause huge signalling rates which are a DoS attack in themselves.

The solution is to police all components of the call. SBCs police the signalling and the media to ensure that the call is executed as requested and that RTCP traffic is within expected bounds.

Conclusion

Security is a vast subject and needs to be ubiquitous in its implementation. Take care of the fundamentals first:

Test, authenticate, protect, block, limit and police.

? Test network elements against standard IP and SIP test suites to ensure they can survive IP and SIP logic attacks

? Implement strong authentication, identifying your users protects their identity, protect their service and combats disruption.

? Protect the Network by compartmentalizing it to restrict the range of any disruption.

? Block malicious or inappropriate traffic ? do not propagate the problem.

? Limit the rate of traffic to core elements to ensure the survivability of the service.

? Police all aspects of the traffic flowing across the network to prevent fraudulent or inappropriate use.

A secure and dependable service brings with it benefits to users and provider alike. It will build user confidence which in turn creates dependable revenue for the service provider and by addressing the basics from day one, need not be complex or expensive.

While VoIP has been making headway in technological improvements, it still isn?t perfect. If it were, everyone would have deployed at this point. In the past some people had pointed to the lack of 911 support as VoIP?s Achilles? heel, but that small stumbling block has been addressed by the industry. Instead, one of VoIP?s biggest weaknesses when deployed in the enterprise is not even a communications technology issue, it is a power issue. The oft-forgotten downside of VoIP is the fact that when power goes down, so do the phones?if your organization isn?t prepared, that is.

Can You Afford An Outage?

Power reliability is always an issue for IT networks. When systems go down or Internet connection is lost, productivity plummets. Businesses lose thousands as employees twiddle their thumbs. Usually in past cases of IT downtime, there was always one service that workers could count on being online: the phones. Rather than writing emails, working on the database, or otherwise focusing on computer-based tasks, powerless users would at least be able to salvage some productivity by catching up on phone calls.

That prospect could all change if a business implements VoIP without considering power implications. According to a recent Cisco study, the typical user site experiences at least 15 power incidents every year. If the phones go down each time one of these incidents occurs, IT will undoubtedly have to answer to red-faced managers.

This is why it is imperative that power equipment be figured into TCO projections for VoIP rollouts. If the cost of power equipment isn?t spent on the front end, the exponentially higher cost of downtime will be spent on the back end. Not convinced? Consider this: Just this year, the NIST issued five major recommendations when it comes to business deployment of VoIP. The following was one of the five: Evaluate costs for additional power backup systems that may be required to ensure continued operation during power outages.

“Costs may include electrical power to maintain UPS battery charge, periodic maintenance costs for backup power generation systems, and cost of UPS battery replacement,” says the government report issued in January. “If emergency/backup power is required for more than a few hours, electrical generators will be required. Costs for these include fuel, fuel storage facilities, and cost of fuel disposal at end of storage life.?

While these precautions are often par for the course when it comes to power backup preparation at large enterprises, many small to medium-sized enterprises are woefully unprepared for power events. According to Emerson Network Power, more than 60% of SMEs polled don?t use UPS protections for their networks. If you are in this camp and have decided to implement VoIP, it might be time to change your ways.

Juicing The Phones

So why are VoIP phones different from PSTN or PBX phones? The reason is that all PSTN and most PBX handsets get their power supplied through the standard wiring. While the PBX back end may be dependent on a UPS to keep the entire system running, the phones themselves are generally self sufficient.

This is not true for IP phones, which require some kind of power source to stay up. On top of that, all of the network infrastructure that supports the phone systems, such as routers and switches, must also be protected from power outages. So the VoIP power backup effort becomes two-pronged, providing protection for the phones and for the systems that run them.

Power Over Ethernet

There are two options when it comes to providing power to IP phones. The first is to use power adapters and plug them into the facility?s power grid. In this case, a separate UPS desk unit must be provided for each phone that requires availability during power interruption. The second choice is to supply power through the Ethernet lines. PoE allows for greater flexibility in terms of power backup. By feeding the handsets with juice through the wiring, administrators are able to consolidate the power required to run these units. As a result, a single rackmount UPS in the wiring closet can be used to back up all of the handsets in a group. Unless an organization is small, this solution can provide significant savings over the plan to provide UPS units per phone. But more importantly, the consolidation will allow IT to keep a better eye on backup equipment and build more redundancy and availability into the environment.

A number of companies offer appropriate UPS choices for wiring closet setups. The one you choose will need to support the sum of the watts ratings of the loads supported by the IP telephony equipment supported on the racks in question. Most setups will draw between 500 and 4,000W single phase at 120VAC or 208VAC. To support this range, anything between a single rack all the way to a five-rack (5U) UPS will be necessary.

APC offers a number of models appropriate for this type of setup. On the smaller end of the scale is the APC Smart Online UPS, a 1U unit for less complicated load setups. If you are looking for more reliability, the 4U APC Symmetra RM is a choice that can offer up to 99.999% reliability.

TrippLite also has a range of UPS products specifically designed and released to address VoIP needs. The SmartPro line-interactive model is a 3U unit that can simultaneously back up 120VAC and 208VAC equipment. Two SmartOnline UPS models offer true online conditioning of power. The first, a 5U unit, offers support of 208VAC, while the second, a 7U unit, offers support for both voltages.

As mentioned before, the problem of backing up VoIP power doesn?t stop at the handsets. Regardless of whether you are consolidating backup through a PoE setup, there will be a need for a rackmount UPS for the infrastructure that supports these handsets.