net.com says its SHOUT2500 voice gateway packs $300,000 worth of equipment into a 2U, $110,000 unit equipped with dual T3 interfaces, sixteen T1/E1 connections, SIP/H.323 interoperability, and integrated SS7/C7.

by Wayne Kawamoto [March 4, 2002]

net.com recently announced its SHOUT2500, the latest in the company's SHOUTIP telephony line. According to the company, SHOUT2500 is the first universal gateway platform that offers dual T3 interfaces, integrated SIP/H.323 interoperability and protocol conversion, and integrated SS7/C7 in a 2U unit. As a result, the SHOUT2500 is designed to reduce costs, time to market, and space requirements by more than 50 percent by eliminating multiple standalone devices and complex integration efforts that the company says are needed with competing solutions.

The new SHOUT2500 switch/gateway combines gateway, gatekeeper, IP, and TDM [definition] switching, SS7 [definition] and other signaling, call control, interactive voice response (IVR) [definition], and SIP [definition] and H.323 [definition] interoperability and protocol conversion. The company says that its SHOUTIP line is known for its extensive business support system and real-time billing capabilities, ease of configuration, and open programmability.

Net.com claims that its SHOUT2500 delivers the following:

1. Reduced capital and life cycle costs. For service providers planning to deploy T3-based service, the SHOUT2500 offers a cost of entry of just over $100,000 for equipment while piecemeal solutions from other vendors may require capital costs of up to $300,000 per Central Office for the gateway/gatekeeper, standalone SS7 server, and IVR platform. Also, the company says that most solutions lack SIP/H.323 conversion capability, and those that do require separate boxes.

2. Improved office economics. The SHOUT2500 may deliver better central office economics by reducing requirements for real estate, power, cooling, and ongoing administration. The device takes up two 19" rack units (3.5" high). To provide comparable density and functionality, net.com says that competitive solutions may require multiple devices that take up as much as six times the space.

3. Best port-density for form factor. The addition of the SHOUT2500 with its dual T3 interfaces and 16 T1/E1 connections may let the SHOUTIP line furnish high port density in a small form factor. The SHOUT2500 initially supports 960 voice calls, complementing the SHOUT1100, which supports 240 calls via T1/E1 interfaces. According to net.com, most competitive solutions support only a single T3 interface.

4. Low port cost. The SHOUT2500 offers a cost per port of $205, which may be an improvement of up to 40 percent versus competitive solutions that might use multiple chassis to achieve the density, as well as separate trunking gateways, SS7/C7 signaling servers, IVR servers, and call controllers.

5. Newly integrated SIP/H.323 protocol conversion. While much of today's IP telephony infrastructure uses the H.323 protocol for interoperability, softswitch architectures and newer platforms may be using SIP. net.com says that its SHOUTlink technology is the first to enable interoperability between the two to protect service providers' investments in first-generation gateways. SHOUTlink functionality is now integrated directly into the SHOUT2500 as well as being available as a standalone device. By having SIP/H.323 interworking on the platform, the SHOUT2500 may assure users of being able to communicate with all standards-based clearinghouses.

6. Better performance. net.com's BESTflow frame-packing technique is designed to improve bandwidth utilization 100 percent, which could allow for nearly twice the number of calls to be carried with no compromise in quality.

7. Billing. net.com says that it is unique in its integration of billing capabilities into the SHOUT2500.

Designed to deliver the lowest cost of ownership, the SHOUT2500 incorporates net.com's SHOUTscript open API for custom application generation. Also, SHOUTIP's open programmable architecture may let service providers rapidly configure and deliver new services to their customer base.

"With the market for IP telephony on the verge of a major upswing, the timing couldn't be better for the SHOUT2500," says Craig Forbes, net.com's vice president of marketing. "SIP clients will soon be making their way to millions of desktops running Microsoft XP and many enterprises are demanding IP-based voice services. The SHOUT2500 lets service providers take advantage of this demand with minimal investment, and protects investments in current infrastructures. It builds on and updates what service providers have in place and allows faster roll-out of services at a lower cost."

"With other VoIP solutions, if you want to do billing, you have to go buy software that costs anywhere from $100,000 to $175,000," says Chuck Johnson, president and CEO of Genex, a Florida-based company that builds and manages service provider networks. "Worse yet, this approach is usually only about 70 percent accurate. Outside of net.com's SHOUTIP, the only good billing solution is to pass through a switch, which means buying a switch or leasing ports for $600/month. It also means converting back to TDM format, which can add 3 or 4 seconds delay."

Pricing and availability
Scheduled to ship by the end of March, 2002, the SHOUT2500 will list for $110,000.

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