The University of Vienna, the oldest university in German-speaking Europe, is reporting that its recent deployment of IPmux TDMoIP gateways from RAD Data Communications is yielding significant savings. The RAD equipment, which connects 23 separate locations, enables the convergent transmission of voice and data over a Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) infrastructure. One factor that was particularly important for the university in choosing the RAD solution was that TDMoIP does not require existing TDM-based telephone systems to be replaced by expensive Voice over IP (VoIP) systems nor expanded at great effort and cost. In 2001, requirements for increased bandwidth led the university to replace the existing fixed lines then used for data transmission with dark fibre lines leased from various providers. The university now operates its own GbE network via this dark fibre infrastructure. With dark fibre, however, only the optical fibre is leased as a physical transport medium from a service provider. Switching and management are the responsibility of the lessee. 
VoIP Too Expensive"In order to utilize the dark fibre lines as optimally as possible, we also looked for an economical solution to transmit telephone calls between the locations over the new GbE infrastructure," stated Markus Ankner of the central IT service at the University of Vienna. "As a result, the existing leased 2 Mbps voice lines became superfluous," he continued. "A new VoIP-based solution was not an issue, since the necessary investment for the telephone network would have been too high," Ankner explained. "Using TDMoIP to connect our existing telephone system to our new high-speed network appeared almost too easy to us at first, but in view of the impressive test results, especially given the excellent voice quality, it didn't take long to convince us of the benefits." "TDMoIP technology provides an ideal alternative to Voice over IP," noted Christian Gerwig, Product Manager at CS Communications & Systems Austria GmbH, the RAD distributor partner that first proposed the TDMoIP solution to the University of Vienna. "By transmitting TDM data over GbE, universities and other operators of large networks, such as corporations and government offices, can reduce line costs without undertaking additional investment in expensive upgrades of the existing telephone systems and LAN infrastructure, or even the acquisition of an integrated softswitchbased VoIP system," Gerwig added. "TDMoIP proves its unbeatable cost benefit by its favorable price structure, its simple installation and its high degree of reliability." In addition to high speed data applications, some 8,000 employees and numerous students currently use the new network for cost-effective and high-grade telephone connectivity between 23 university locations. This has become, therefore, one of the largest installations of convergent networks in all of Austria. Other Austrian universities have expressed interest in TDMoIP as a result. "When we explain TDMoIP to our customers, they are often surprised by how easily they can connect their conventional telephony systems to packet-switched networks such as Fast and Gigabit Ethernet," said Tal Gilad, TDMoIP Product Line Manager at RAD Data Communications. "This is particularly true of campus environments and networking locations within a metropolitan area." 
|
