November 13, 2007 -- Edgewater Networks, Inc. has introduced its EdgeMarc 200 Series of routers, which provide business class voice quality and reliability for enterprise and hosted VoIP and data services.
The EdgeMarc 200 product family consists of several models that integrate a router with an Ethernet wide area network (WAN) or ADSL uplink, Ethernet LAN switch, integrated access device (IAD) analog ports, PSTN gateway, call quality probe and optional 802.11 wireless access point for data. The products can be installed behind an existing ADSL or cable modem or act as an ADSL/ADSL 2+ modem directly terminating the broadband link.
The routers' integrated analog ports can be connected to handsets, a fax machine or PBX/Key system ports and the PSTN gateway port is used for survivability or failover. The survivability feature will route calls over the local PSTN line in the event that the broadband link fails. Additional software features include a stateful packet inspection firewall, IPSec VPN, NAT router, DHCP server, passive call quality monitoring and bandwidth management features.
The company notes that a common problem with delivering VoIP over low bandwidth links is ensuring good voice quality. The EdgeMarc 200 Series provides bandwidth management including traffic shaping, prioritization, call admission control and Diffserv marking to ensure high quality voice calls to remote SOHO users.
The series also includes passive call quality monitoring and is fully compatible with Edgewater Networks' EdgeView VoIP Support system.
Passive call quality statistics collected by the EdgeMarc 200 Series include average mean opinion score (MOS), below threshold MOS alerts, jitter, packet loss, average packet loss burst length and much more. The EdgeView VoIP Support System performs on-demand MOS analysis and includes context sensitive troubleshooting help.
"The EdgeMarc 200 Series products are another example of our commitment to simplifying the delivery of converged voice and data services," comments David G. Norman, CEO of Edgewater Networks. "Integrating an ADSL modem into the EdgeMarc reduces the number of systems and provides enterprise and service provider customers with an easy way to deliver high quality voice and data services over broadband."