Voice over IP (VoIP) has become one of the fastest growing applications for both wireline and wireless telecommunications equipment manufacturers. Not only does VoIP afford end-users affordable access to voice calls, but it allows media gateway designers the ability to engineer equipment that serves many different purposes " a situation that typically would provide a cost benefit for both. In the case of VoIP, however, the opposite is true. As VoIP gains greater and greater acceptance, profit margins for equipment manufacturers are minimized based on the competitive nature of the application and the high cost of designing IP PBX and multiservice access nodes (MSANs) at many different channel densities. Engineering costs are rising and product prices are declining. Although many companies have designed proprietary...
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