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Mitel Delivers LLDP-MED-Ready Open Standard for VoIP DeploymentsTMCnet VoIP Minute Watch Columnist
Communications systems provider Mitel announced this week its release of a standards-ready implementation of the Telecommunications Industry Association's Link Layer Discovery Protocol for Media Endpoint Discovery (LLDP-MED) as part of the company's 3300 IP Communications Platform's latest release.
The protocol would simplify the deployment and ongoing management of VoIP endpoints, as well as providing a more standardized way to locate such endpoints as part of enhancing Emergency Call Service capabilities in enterprise VoIP networks. "Based on IEEE 802.1AB 'Link Layer Discovery Protocol,' LLDP-MED extends the standard to specifically focus on the needs of VoIP to allow simplified provisioning, ease of administration and several valuable new discovery capabilities," noted the company's news release.
The new LLDP-MED standard features Quality of Service LAN policies (such as VLAN, Layer 2 Priority and Diffserv settings); "plug and play" VoIP networking; device location discovery for reporting location of the end-user in emergency calling and other location dependant applications, as well as maintaining integrity of the location database; extended and automated power management of Power over Ethernet endpoints, including fine-grained power budgeting and priority settings; inventory management, allowing network administrators to track their VoIP-based devices, and determine their characteristics manufacturer, software and hardware versions, serial /asset number); and "fast start" mechanisms so VoIP devices could come fully into service in a timely fashion.
"LLDP-MED standardizes VoIP discovery on the network to greatly simplify management and facilitate integration into any network environment," said Jim Davies, Mitel's chief technology officer. "This allows customers to implement VoIP based on open standards, without having to lock into a one vendor environment."
Mitel made news last month when it announced that British Columbia-based SynchroSERV, Bentall Capital’s Tenant Service Contact Center also known as ClikFIX, tapped the company to deliver an IP-based contact center system. SynchoSERV provides 24x7 tenant services to Bentall’s client properties throughout Canada.
The Mitel Contact Center system is comprised of the Mitel Interactive Contact Center, Mitel Intelligent Queue and Mitel Contact Center Management. The Contact Center system also integrates into Microsoft Office Live Communications Server 2005.
"To address the increasing needs of our clients, we needed a contact center solution with large-scale requirements," said Luanne Albino, general manager, SynchroSERV back then. "We selected the Mitel system because it provides a market-leading solution that more than fits our needs today and also gives us the opportunity to expand as our business needs change."
Mitel
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Johanne Torres is contributing editor for TMCnet and Internet Telephony magazine. To see more articles by Johanne Torres, please visit Johanne Torres' columnist page.
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