Current IP-PBX System : Siemens

Siemens
Siemens purchased three major PBX makers, based in the United States, Belgium, and Britain, during the early 1990s and so has the largest share of the worldwide installed base of PBX systems. The company also claims to have sold more digital CO ports, at well over 100 million, on its EWSD system than any other telecom manufacturer.

For small and medium-sized enterprises, Siemens offers the HiPath 3000 family of IP platforms, with the user capacities that are stated in Figure 1. These systems can be linked in an IP-based network with the AllServe 150 applications processor, to support up to 1,000 users.


Figure 1: Capacity of HiPath 3000 call servers.

Each of these call servers is available in a 19-inch rack-mounting form (the 3300) or as a cabinet, which is wall-mounting (3550) or floor-standing (the HiPath 3750). For markets with European ISDN standards, Siemens also supplies two smaller systems, which are not strictly IP-PBXs: the HiPath 3150, for up to 14 users, and the HiPath 3250, with two basic rate interface (BRI) ports.

In association with its HiPath systems, Siemens introduced a range of optiPoint 500 phones, replacing the optiPoint 300 sets, which had garnered praise for their ergonomic qualities but could not support in-line dc power over the LAN. Five optiPoint 500 IP telephones are available, ranging from an entry model to the advanced, of which three have a Universal Serial Bus (USB) interface, while four models have a display and loudspeaker. Additionally, the optiPoint 400 phones are multiprotocol sets designed for platform and location independence, while still having a built-in Ethernet interface and power-over-LAN capability.

The Siemens CorNet package facilitates networking over an IP WAN, or the PSTN with the more powerful HiPath 4000 or 5000 platforms, and Siemens emphasizes that applications need only be installed once to be accessible across the entire company and from every workstation. Under the HiPath brand name are Xpression for unified messaging, ProCenter for multimedia contact centers, and Fault Management software.

The HiPath 4000 is an IP convergence platform, available in three models, that supports up to 30,000 users on the largest system. The HiPath 5000 is a pure IP communications system, to which all the features and functions of the Siemens' HiCom300 PBX have been transferred, and which can be installed on industry-standard servers running Microsoft Windows NT or Windows 2000.

Siemens deployed its HiPath 5000 system to support over 1,000 IP phones and soft clients in its new San Jose, California, facility during 2000. A detailed diagram, showing how many of Siemens' IP telephony products may be used, is shown in Figure 2.


Figure 2: Siemens' HiPath systems and terminals.

The RG 2500 is a VoIP gateway that transforms voice signals into IP packets (or vice versa). The optiClient 330 is a PC-based soft client, using the Windows format. The HiPath AP 1100 and 1140 provide analog ports on the line side. The PhoneMail system is a high-performance voice mail product that was inherited by Siemens from ROLM via IBM.