Avaya is delivering end-to-end SIP across its IP phones, IP PBX and contact center products.Avaya on Jan. 21 delivered on its promise to more broadly support the open
standards Session Initiation Protocol when it launched a range of voice over IP
and contact center upgrades featuring end-to-end SIP support.
Avaya in its flagship Communications Manager IP PBX software delivered
end-to-end SIP support, adding new endpoint support for using the industry-standard
signaling protocol to existing SIP trunking.
This combined with our native SIP trunking for Communications Manager and
for SIP enablement services starts to give end-to-end SIP all the way to endpoints,
said Anne Coulomb, global solutions manager for SIP at Avaya. Once you
have SIP within your network or linked it within your enterprise, it opens a lot
of doors for new uses, including phones, desktops and new applications youd
like to build.
Although SIP is on a lot of customer checklists, to date it has not been
widely implemented, according to Allan Sulkin, president of TEQConsult Group.
Except for a few vendors like Siemens and Asterisk, SIP is not the native
communications protocol in [VOIP] systems, he said. Thats because a lot
of features arent supported in SIP mode.
Why would I want a SIP phone if I lose features in most of these systems?
Sulkin asked.
Communications Manager 5 can run on the same server with Avayas SIP
Enablement Services software and exploit the 61 features supported by SES. That
helps to reduce the cost and management associated with multiple servers.
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more here. http://www.eweek.com/c/a/VOIP-and-Telephony/Private-Equity-Firms-Snag-Avaya-for-82-Billion/
Communications Manager 5.0 also supports SIP alternate routing, which
enables SIP traffic to be redirected onto another trunk if the primary trunk
goes down.
Beyond Communications Manager 5.0, Avaya also SIP-enabled three models of
its Avaya one-X VOIP deskphones through a new firmware upgrade. That gives
users access to presence-enabled functions in directories, so that users can
see the availability of colleagues within a phones directory.
In addition, Avaya added SIP support to its Avaya Video Telephony Solution
videoconferencing system.
Avaya claimed that it is making SIP practical in the contact center by
providing end-to-end SIP support through a new purpose-built SIP phone for
contact center applications and by upgrading to the
Avaya
Call
Center
software with new end-to-end SIP support.
The new Avaya Agent Deskphone 16cc eliminates the requirement for CTI
middleware, so when a call gets to the agent, they already see information
about the customer calling in, said Colleen Agurirre, the company's director
of product management.
The carrier used ISDN in the past to deliver that additional information.
SIP didnt have standards for that. Avaya has been working with carriers to
establish the standard [for SIP], she said.
Its nice Avaya has Call Center 5.0 thats end-to-end SIP. But for the most
part you are still seeing blended environments at best, said Ian Jacobs,
senior analyst with Frost & Sullivan. The hard phone in particular though
helps for a sort of new model for contact centersdistributed contact centers
with remote agents. You just need to send them the phone, in theory plug it in,
and the apps are pushed to them.
All of the new SIP-enabled offerings are available now.
VOIP & Telephony 
