Nortel will sell Security-Enhanced MG 3600 VoIP Gateway in North America

Bolstering a VoIP trunk gateway to protect against rising security threats, a Toronto-based telecom equipment maker announced today that it will start selling in North America a carrier-grade product that in the past has only been available overseas.

Officials at Nortel Networks Corp. – a company that IT insiders say could be nearly gone as a standalone company – are releasing their “Media Gateway 3600” in North America as a way to reach smaller markets that require less network capacity than more densely populated areas. The gateway already is available in Europe, Asia and the CALA region.
Samih Elhage, the president of carrier VoIP and applications solutions at Nortel, said having access to a smaller sized gateway at a lower cost allows carriers to access more markets in a more cost-effective way.
“The MG 3600 also allows for capacity to be added in smaller increments than a gateway made to serve a large, densely populated region so it scales at the right ratio and cost for smaller markets,” Elhage said. “Even though it’s small, this product still offers complete carrier-grade options. The latest release of the MG 3600 includes new security features such as encryption on the signaling channel that protects the networks from attacks that could cause loss of service.”
Those security features are becoming more and more important across the entire telecom industry, as analysts see malicious code grow at a record pace, cyber-criminals’ attacks are becoming more targeted and sophisticated and spammers leverage people’s fears in this down economy.
The down economy, meanwhile, has taken a profound toll on Nortel, a one-time stock market darling that’s faced financial losses, bankruptcy, sweeping layoffs and the selling off of major divisions. The news is bad but its true, said by some analyst.
What is terrible about the situation from my perspective is the communications and tech spaces are doing well relative to most other markets .In other words, this downturn for these markets has not been terrible. And there is a chance they could see these spaces bounce back faster than other industries.
Certainly, with its cost-savings potential, VoIP trunking solutions such as Nortel’s MG 3600 appear to have gained traction in this recession.
The MG 3600 is part of a Nortel media gateway portfolio that the company says generates 80 percent cost savings between capital expenses and operational expenses when migrating from TDM to VoIP.