Intel Announces IP Telephony for PBX Systems

Voice over IP, in all of its elusive glory, conjures up images of home users with dial up modems trying to cut their long distance bills by talking into a handset attached to their computer. Intel seems to think that it has much more potential than that and has rigged up a system that will let the corporate world take a shot at bringing VoIP into the limelight. The company just announced the general availability of the PBX Digital Gateway, which lets organizations make use of IP-based telephony services using existing telecommunications equipment. The PBX Digital Gateway converts digital signals from existing digital telephone equipment to a protocol called H.323 that can be transmitted over a company's wide area network (WAN) to communications devices like IP phones, wireless phones, and IP servers. This conversion lets those devices act as normal extensions of the existing digital telephone network. The PBX Digital Gateway supports PBX equipment from manufacturers like Mitel Networks, Nortel Networks, and Avaya. The Gateway should be available through Intel distributors in mid-November for around $2,730.