Bandwidth Optimised VoIP
Vocality International's products are renowned for their bandwidth efficient handling of voice calls. As some networks migrate to VoIP, Vocality was faced with a challenge.Vocality always aims to deliver telephony voice of the highest possible quality, with the most efficient bandwidth optimisation.
VoIP does not readily allow for this. Users of VoIP are often complaining about bandwidth overheads, sometimes being forced to use inconvenient techniques such as RTP compression to try to recover some bandwidth overhead, and the subject of voice quality is never far from user's thoughts. VoIP is designed to be used in environments where packet loss is prevalent. Vocality believes that this compromise is unacceptable to the typical Vocality user, and this is where the combination of Vocality in a VoIP network is quite dramatic.
SIP Signalling
Session Initiated Signalling, or SIP, is used as a universal method of communicating devices such as VoIP phones. SIP is primarily used in setting up and tearing down voice or video calls. Whereas H.323 has, in the past, been used for VoIP signalling, Vocality - like many - believe that SIP is a far more effective solution, and simpler to implement in the network.CISCO Support ............... And Others
Of Course, the beauty of using a standard such as SIP-based VoIP is the ability to introduce and mix devices from all ranges of manufacturers, including Cisco, Alcatel, Nortel and so on - delivering the extension of a core network into the field with maximum bandwidth efficiency.Bandwidth Saving
A traditional terrestrial router - the kind found in most large organisations - is designed to operate over high bandwidth links. To that end, voice tends to use at least 24Kbps for each phone call used (when using a codec such as G.729A at 8Kbps). RTP compression, which brings its own technal restrictions, can reduce this - but inserting Vocality in the WAN can actually reduce the bandwidth needed per voice port down even more, to around 10Kbps per voice channel.Voice Quality
Vocality always gives voice the highest priority of any of its Dynamic Bandwidth Allocation activities. This falls in line with the company's activities in supporting tactical and secure voice - which demands such prioritisation. To this end, whilst voice channels are encoded in the SIP device (SIP phone, for example), the Vocality unit takes the pre-compressed voice and handles it with the bandwidth priorities that are appreciated by the more demanding field user. Broadcast, military and high end corporate users do NOT expect to have voice calls the same quality as an overseas low cost call centre voice call. They expect the same quality - whether the voice call is handled through SIP based VoIP, through Vocality's E1/T1 Digital Card or through Vocality's Analogue Voice Card.Quality, at the end of the day, speaks volumes.