Toshiba Voice over IP gateway products provide a seamless bridge between the public switched telephone network and a TCP/IP network. The gateway eliminates the costs and inconvenience of maintaining separate networks by creating one voice and fax long distance carrier. The gateway is transparent to the users so there are no changes in the way they place voice or fax calls. The gateway uses current telephones, host telephone systems, fax machines, routers, wiring, LANs, and WANs, so no additional infrastructure equipment is required.

Using Toshiba Strata systems with VoIP solutions, customers receive the benefits of much greater call center effectiveness and customer service capabilities that improve their business operation.

Cost-effective VoIP applications.
Toshiba Strata CTX and Strata DK telephone systems integrate with Voice over IP telephony gateway products that provide service enhancing and cost effective Voice over IP applications targeted to small and medium size customers with multiple offices. Customers receive the benefits of much greater call center effectiveness and customer service capabilities that improve their business operation. They also benefit from office to office toll bypass calling that produces substantial cost savings.

Toll Bypass.
Voice and fax traffic between a home office and branch office, normally routed through the public switched telephone toll network, is instead carried via the Internet or a private intranet in the form of IP packets. The benefit is cost savings by eliminating long distance toll charges between these locations, especially for international calls.

IP Call Center.
One of the major expenses of a call center is the cost of incoming 800 lines. A call center can use the IP Voice Gateway solution to produce substantial savings by increasing incoming local calls and reducing incoming calls on 800 lines. This is done by setting up local point of presence (POP) locations so geographically dispersed customers dial a local access number, access the gateway, and route these calls via a private IP network and/or the public Internet to the call center instead of dialing a central 800 number. This makes these incoming calls local calls for customers and avoids 800 toll charges for these calls to the call center.

Teleworker.
Digital telephone extender products allow you to put Toshiba digital telephones in small branches and employees’ home offices. These employees become better integrated into the organization by using all the telephone features available to workers in the main office.

Strata CTX VoIP Products
Toshiba Strata CTX and Strata DK telephone systems integrate with Voice over IP telephony gateway products that provide service enhancing and cost effective VoIP applications targeted to small and medium size customers with multiple offices. Voice over IP telephony gateway products offer toll bypass cost savings and provide call center productivity enhancements that make voice over IP technology a sound investment.

Toshiba IP Voice Gateway: The Toshiba IP Voice Gateway is a self-contained communications gateway device that enables organizations to route both voice and fax communications over a TCP/IP network. The IP Voice Gateway (BVPU) is a printed circuit board that inserts into a universal slot in a Strata CTX or DK system. The BVPU is an H.323 Version 2 compliant gateway and can interoperate with other H.323 devices as well as other BVPU cards in other systems.

In the simplest sense, the BVPU converts outgoing voice or fax signals into a digital format, compresses and packages the signal for transmission over TCP/IP networks. On the incoming side, the BVPU reverses this process, receiving voice or fax data packets and translating them back into appropriate voice and fax signals.

The BVPU connects to the LAN through an RJ45, 10BaseT connection. An RJ21 jack provides a serial maintenance connection. This connection must be used to initiate the card. Once an IP address has been established, maintenance may be performed through the LAN connection.

Each BVPU card occupies one slot in the Strata CTX670, CTX100, or DK424i cabinet, or in the expansion cabinet of the Strata DK40i and supports 4 E&M ports. Multiple (up to 20) 4-port BVPU cards can be installed in a Strata CTX670 or DK424i system for capacity requirements up to 80 ports. Up to two BVPU cards can be installed in a Strata CTX100 or DK40i system for capacity requirements up to 8 ports. This meets the needs for both small and medium sized customers.

Oki Internet Voice Gateway: Toshiba has an agreement with Oki Network Technologies to market the Oki Internet Voice Gateway BV1250 products through authorized Toshiba dealers. The Oki Internet Voice Gateway is an external solution that provides the ability to route both voice and fax communications over a TCP/IP network.

With its seamless system configuration and all inclusive, one-box design, Oki's Internet Voice Gateway provides excellent system reliability and voice quality while eliminating the need for additional software, computer boards, and wiring. The gateway is a compact, rack mountable, self-contained, UNIX-based unit that is pre-configured and easy to install. It is not a server PC with complex configuration requirements and does not require MCSE certification. This allows organizations to take advantage of IP telephony with simpler implementation requirements.

The Oki Internet Voice Gateway connects the existing telephone system’s type 1 or 2, 2 or 4 wire E&M tie lines or regular analog loop start telephone lines to digital data networks without the need to add a separate server.

The Oki Internet Voice Gateway is upgradeable to take advantage of future technologies and expandable to fit the changing size and scope of the customer’s operation.

The Oki Internet Voice Gateway provides 4 ports configurable for 4 voice channels, or there is an option for 3 voice channels and 1 fax channel. Multiple (up to 20) 4-port gateways can be connected together for additional capacity requirements up to 80 ports. This meets the needs for both small and medium sized customers.

MCK Branch Office EXTender: Toshiba has an agreement with MCK Communications to market their line of EXTender and PBXgateway products with Strata business telephone systems through authorized Toshiba dealers. The MCK EXTender products are intended for use by small and medium-sized organizations with geographically dispersed locations. This enables them to take advantage of lower cost, single system operations.

The MCK Branch Office EXTender extends the power of the main location’s Strata system and voice mail system to small branch offices or individual users over the customer’s existing data network. This enables groups or individual remote workers to use Toshiba digital telephones to have seamless access to the main location’s telephone system and voice mail system from remote locations. This provides these remote employees with transparent access to all the same capabilities as if they were locally connected at the main location.

MCK EXtenders use MCK’s Remote Voice Protocol (RVP)™ and Remote Voice Protocol over IP (RVPoIP)™ to convert voice and signaling into packets that can be sent through a remote access connection to the corporate voice network. The MCK EXTender connects to the customer’s existing corporate network over traditional circuit switched networks including T1 (TDM), Fractional T1, ISDN, Frame Relay circuits through an external network device, or over packet switched networks (i.e. IP, xDSL, Cable). Using a third-party network termination allows the Branch Office EXTender to perform in a wide variety of network environments. Network connections can include ISDN terminal adapters, CSU/DSUs, multiplexers, FRADs, routers, DOCSIS-compliant cable modems, etc. Using advanced voice compression algorithms, the EXTender minimizes network bandwidth requirements while ensuring high voice quality.

Each EXTender remote unit is available in 12-port, 8-port, or individual user configurations. A corresponding PBXgateway switch unit at the main location end connects to the Strata system through digital station ports. MCK PBXgateway switch units are available in 24-port, 12-port, and 8-port configurations.