Linksys Expands CPE VoIP Line

By Paula Bernier

Linksys the leader in VoIP products for consumer through retail with about 90 percent marketshare and the fastest growing vendor in SIP-based phone and IP PBX solutions in the SMB market has unveiled a handful of new products, as well as software enhancements to existing gear.

The companys new SIP phone appliance, the SPA8000, is an eight-port ATA that leverages its success in the two-port ATA space, for which it has shipped more than 10 million ports, said Sherman Scholten, Linksys director of product marketing for VoIP.

Linksys expects this new product, which is slated for availability in May, to drive VoIP more into the mass market, given it will sell for less than $250 whereas comparable ATAs typically sell for anywhere between $400 and $1000-plus.

Also new in the product is the SPA932, an attendant console, for the Linksys SPA962 multiline IP phone. The 32-button sidecar will be available starting in May for a list price of $99.99.

Weve gone from ATAs into selling IP phones, said Scholten. Our 692 is the high end IP phone from us, thats why were doing a sidecar for it.

The SPA692, the sixth IP phone offered by Linksys, has been available for six months, and now the company is ramping up manufacturing on it, said Scholten. The phone can be used by service providers offering hosted VoIP, VARs and smaller service providers using open source platforms like Asterisk, and Linksys VARs, he said. Scholten added that these phones have comprehensive interoperability with all SIP servers, including the Linksys IP PBX application server, called the SPA9000.

A third new product available from Linksys starting next month is an ADSL gateway called the AG310. This is for service providers who want to leverage an IAD that has phone ports. Integrating the functionality of an IAD with two RJ11s, the AG310 can terminate an ADSL2 WAN connection, has a full-blown router and provides four Fast Ethernet ports for the LAN.

Finally, Release 5.0 software enhancements to seven of the Linksys products add SIP over TLS (transport layer security) functionality, which allows you to provide same security for your VoIP network as a bank does for its online banking, said Scholten.

Release 5.0 applies to the SPA2102 and SPA3102 ATAs; the SPA922, SPA942 and SPA962 IP phones; the SPA8000; and the AG310.

This software iteration also supports IP media loopback, an IETF solution for service assurance. In fact, Linksys and Brix Networks this week at VON are collaborating, along with service provider SunRocket, to demonstrate IP media loopback.

The solution combines service assurance technology from Brix with various Linksys home networking devices to enable periodic SIP media loopback testing across the entire network, groups, or single subscribers.

This standards-based collaboration not only delivers end-to-end service visibility through automated performance monitoring tests, but also allows SunRocket to act on this information and execute service improvements in real time, said SunRocket CTO Mark Fedor.

Linksys www.linksys.com