Cisco Systems Inc. this week announced the addition of IP telephony options on its Catalyst 4000 LAN switching platform.
The enhancements are targeted at medium to large enterprise campuses as well as branch office locations. They allow users to power IP telephones directly from the switch and enable that Catalyst 4000 to function as a gateway to the public switched telephone network (PSTN).
The new products include a 48-port 10/100 Ethernet switch card with inline power, an optional power supply and auxiliary power shelf for the Catalyst 4006, and a so-called Access Gateway Module. Cisco also rolled out the latest model of its IP telephony servers - the Media Convergence Server (MCS) 7822 - and a power patch panel for the Catalyst 4003.
Cisco already announced inline power, as well as other IP telephony enhancements, on its Catalyst 6000 platform. The 48-port inline power card provides 48 volts of power down the Ethernet cable using Cisco's Phone Discovery technology. With Phone Discovery, the Catalyst switch detects the presence of an IP telephone and supplies inline power. Power is enabled by the Catalyst 4000 Auxiliary DC Power Shelf, which eliminates the need for individual uninterruptable power supplies at each desk, Cisco says.
Link redundancy is supported with Cisco's Fast EtherChannel and Gigabit EtherChannel technology, which helps ensure that links to routers, switches and servers are available following a failure.
The Access Gateway Module (AGM) is a Cisco IOS engine that provides WAN and inter-VLAN IP routing, a voice gateway to the PSTN or legacy PBX, and network services specifically for voice networks. The AGM supports existing WAN and voice modules for the Cisco 1750, 2600 and 3600 series routers. Additionally, the AGM has a slot for analog interface options and supports optional digital signal processor and WAN encryption modules on board.
Lastly, the MCS 7822 is designed to be a low-cost server platform for testing environments and smaller deployments where two redundant MCSs will be used. Cisco's CallManager 3.0 software comes preinstalled on this platform.
The inline power-enabled Catalyst 4006 48-port 10/100 cards will be available by the end of this month and will list for $5,995. The Catalyst 4000 power entry module, auxiliary power shelf and power supplies will also be available by the end of this month and will list for $995, $3,995 and $1,795 respectively.
The AGM starts at $7,495 and will also be available at the end of September. The MCS 7822 is currently available and lists for $9,995.