By Jeff Erlichman

The new Networx IPTelS LAN Management feature adds a managed LAN capability to provide complete VoIP service to the desktop.

The Networx Team is adding a new feature called Internet Protocol Telephony Service (IPTelS) LAN Management.  It will add a new feature to the existing IPTelS service.

The IPTelS service currently available on the Networx contracts provides Voice over IP (VoIP) service to the agencies Karl Krumbholz, director of Network Services at GSA told 1105 Custom Media in a recent interview.

“The current service is delivered over an existing or new LAN infrastructure that the customer must provide,” said Krumbholz.  “The LAN management feature adds a managed Local Area Network (LAN) capability to provide complete VoIP service to the desktop as part of the service.”

The feature will extend IPTelS to the desktop and include contractor management of the LAN needed to deliver the VoIP service.  This service is specifically designed to be a network based VoIP replacement for traditional switched voice local service.

Krumbholz said this new managed feature will soon be available under the Networx Enterprise contracts to any Federal agency in the IPTelS service footprint.

The Mobility Challenge

Using the new Networx LAN management feature to grow IPTelS service will ease the process of bringing VoIP to the desktop. But Networx planners like Krumbholz realize VoIP is not the complete answer to government’s converging infrastructure requirements.

That’s because of the nature of what government does, it naturally is a large user of wireless mobile devices.

“As government, we are all plugged into large networks; we are often on call; we are mobile, moving around but having to stay plugged into organization,” explained Krumbholz. “This magnifies that what the requirements must be; in government you have to be in contact and wireless capabilities are so important to every part of government.”

GSA recognizes that mobility requirements are only going to grow.  That’s one reason why the Networx contract is structured the way it is – to enable agencies to invest in their network IP infrastructures and buy the PBXs, WLANs and handhelds needed to power convergence.

“I believe it will happen in time, but it will happen in stages,” said Krumbholz, “where they gradually go to VoIP and then gradually to a converged network.”

According to Krumbholz, a strategy that one agency is looking at is to build out a full VoIP voice network and keep it separate from their data network. Then as that network matures, you can move data on to that network. “There are a lot of ways to be done, but we are in the midst in that evolutionary process now,” noted Krumbholz.

According to Krumbholz as mobile devices evolve, you will have a single device to work with, so whether you plug into the wall or use in wireless sense, you will always be connected.

“What we have seen is increasingly wireless technology that offers an extension of the desktop to anywhere you want to work,” said Krumbholz. “You are actually getting full broadband capability on your computer disconnected from your desktop at some distant location whether at airport or on park bench. And gradually that same capability is migrating to your personal device.”