- More information about the Cisco AS5300/Voice Gateway
- More information about Cisco Voice over IP Solutions
- Mier Communications' Website
- Business Communications Review's Website
ATLANTA, Georgia -- June 8, 1999 -- Cisco Systems, Inc. today announced that the Cisco AS5300/Voice Gateway scored the highest ratings ever achieved in a BCR/Mier Communications competitive review of carrier/ISP-class VoIP gateways, exhibiting the best voice quality of any Voice over IP (VoIP) gateway tested to date. BCR Magazine and Mier Communications will present Cisco with the BCR "Best in Test" award during an award ceremony at 6 p.m., Tuesday, June 8 in Cisco's main booth (7438) at the SuperComm tradeshow in Atlanta, Georgia. (See June 1999 issue of BCR Magazine for a write-up of the review).
After a comprehensive, side-by-side evaluation of carrier/ISP-class VoIP products, Cisco's AS5300/Voice Gateway took "Best in Test" with unprecedented scores for any VoIP products tested by Mier Communications to date. Cisco's product scored 9.1 (on a scale of 1-10) in voice quality, 95 percent in performance, and an overall rating of 89 percent, (5 percentage points higher than the next highest score).
The Cisco AS5300/Voice Gateway also scored the highest ratings in this review in the areas of management and administration, configuration and features. Of the products tested, Cisco's AS5300/Voice Gateway offers the greatest scalability and density with up to four T1s/E1s to enable from 96 to 120 concurrent voice channels per two rack unit (RU); this translates to approximately 2000 to 2500 voice channels in a seven-foot rack.
In addition, the Cisco AS5300/Voice Gateway received Mier Communications' "NetWORKS as Advertised" award, which verifies that the product fully meets the expectations and requirements of the target user community for which it was designed.
"We found the voice quality of the Cisco AS5300/ Voice Gateway, running G.729 vocoding, to be incredible," said Edwin E. Mier, president of Mier Communications. "In our view, this quality far exceeds toll quality of the switch telephone networks. The only other vocoding that provides comparative quality is G.711, but bandwidth requirements for this vocoder are unacceptably high."
"The BCR 'Best in Test' has become one of the most sought-after awards within the industry, and Cisco certainly deserves major congratulations," said Fred Knight, editor/publisher of Business Communications Review. "Publishing test results in an emerging area like VoIP reduces the level of fear, uncertainty, doubt and hype, and that's good for everyone."
The combined VoIP gateway solution consisted of a Cisco AS5300/Voice Gateway running Cisco IOS. software. The voice quality and performance review involved latency-oriented tests conducted by trained interactive lab testers, as well as blind panel ratings of recorded voice files conducted by two panels. Bandwidth consumption was measured while the voice calls were being generated. During the testing, the Cisco AS5300/ Voice Gateway was pounded by a Hammer IT voice quality and bulk calling system, which generated up to 24 channels of voice calls at rates up to 500 calls per hour for more than 12 hours.
Cisco VoIP Solutions
The Cisco AS5300/Voice Gateway is complemented by a world-class family of Cisco VoIP solutions including the recently announced Cisco AS5800/Voice Gateway for T3 densities, Cisco AccessPath( VS-3, the Cisco 2600, Cisco 3600 and Cisco MC3810 multiservice access platforms for enterprise and central premise equipment (CPE) applications. In addition, the Cisco VCO/4K provides a highly flexible and programmable switch/service node platform for supporting a variety of important capabilities including sophisticated billing, Interactive Voice Response (IVR), least-cost routing and SS7-based applications such as 800 services and Local Number Portability (LNP). Cisco also offers the Cisco Communications Network solution including the Cisco IP Telephone and Cisco CallManager product lines for LAN-based VoIP/packet-telephony applications.About Business Communications Review
BCR is the leading journal for executives in networking and telecommunications, and has been published by BCR enterprises (Westmont, IL) since 1972. BCR provides informed opinion, assessments of the options for network migration and analyses of advanced technologies and services. For subscription information or to learn more about BCR's conference and training programs, visit http://www.bcr.com or call 630-986-1432.About Mier Communications
Mier Communications, founded in 1988, is a networking consultancy and product-test center. With hundreds of its product-comparison analyses published over the years in such leading network trade periodicals as Business Communications Review and Network World magazines. Mier Communications' reputation as a leading, independent product test center is unquestioned. Founded in 1988 by Edwin E. Mier, formerly managing editor of Data Communications magazine and a practicing network consultant for over 20 years, the company has pioneered the comparative assessment of networking hardware and software, having developed methodologies for testing products from ATM switches to network operating systems.
