Avaya wins Miercom IP Telephony Competition for second consecutive year as MENA IP market evolves

As a result, Avaya earned the "Best in Test" award for high-end IP PBX solutions from Business Communications Review (BCR) magazine, which features an article on the test results in its January 2006 issue. The news was received with considerable enthusiasm in the Middle East and North Africa region, where Avaya is making a major push to increase awareness about the benefits of IP telephony deployment.

"Avaya pulled out all the stops and has set a new competitive benchmark with the highest score we've ever recorded in our seven years of testing IP telephony systems," said Rob Smithers, CEO of Miercom. "The company's systems and software just keep getting better, and again delivered rock-solid performance and reliability during this test review."

In its article, BCR notes that it is no longer a question of whether to migrate legacy telephony to IP, or even when. The most asked VoIP question now is: 'Which vendor and system best suits your enterprise's requirements?' According to Miercom, Avaya delivered superior performance for all scenarios tested, resulting in its win for the second consecutive year in a row.

"The Middle East and North Africa region is at a critical juncture in its IP telephony evolution, as the largest banks, logistics, and entertainment providers have opted for IP, with organizations from the mid-market set to follow. Avaya is leading the charge to ensure that regional organizations understand the competitive, produdivity, and cost-saving benefits of IP telephony, and our position in this sector is confirmed by the recent Miercom recognition,"

said Nidal Abou-Ltaif, Managing Director for Avaya Middle East and North Africa

Miercom's test looked at IP telephony solutions based on large-scale systems supporting more than 1,000 stations. In addition to topping this competition, Avaya recently won awards from Miercom and BCR for its IP-based mobility and contact center reporting applications. Avaya is the global market leader in IP telephony solutions.1

In its evaluation, Miercom cited four areas where Avaya deserved special recognition:

- Leading-edge of mobility and WiFi support. Avaya's IP solutions keep workers connected as they move across a corporate campus, travel for business or work off-site.

- Advanced voice-processing sub-systems. Miercom stated that Avaya is "ahead of the competition" when it comes to the quality of voice-processing. This helps companies combine powerful applications integrating voice with multiple media to support next-generation capabilities and services.

- Superior security features. Miercom notes that Avaya is the only vendor tested that had real-time protocol (RTP) encryption also running on its IP Softphone. RTP encryption a higher level of security for the Softphone, without sacrificing call efficiency or quality.

- Rock-solid system performance. Avaya achieved 100 percent success on call-load tests that flooded the system (36,000 calls per hour over nine continuous hours). Avaya's performance showcases its ability to deliver IP communications featuring the high quality and reliability businesses expect in their enterprise voice communications.

The Miercom test included two simulation sites - one representing a company headquarters and another representing a remote office - connected by an IP WAN link. Avaya submitted its industry-leading Avaya Communication Manager IP telephony software for the test. The software was hosted by an Avaya Media Server that supports up to 12,000 IP stations and by an Avaya G650 Media Gateway at the remote site. Avaya communication applications submitted for the test included Meeting Exchange for Web-based collaboration and conferencing, and the Avaya IP Softphone with video and SIP-based instant messaging.

In the "architecture" category of the test, Avaya took top honors for "solid and well thought-out scalability, survivability and distributed networking." Miercom cited Avaya's ability to deliver superior voice quality via QOS traffic routing and call admission control capabilities that regulate traffic between sites. Testers noted Avaya's architecture is designed with failover and redundant call control capabilities for continuity of operations and with solid support of the SIP protocol for interoperability.

The company also earned a perfect score for "end points" - offering nearly a dozen IP hard phone models. Products and capabilities singled out by Miercom included Avaya's new all-SIP softphone, wireless BlackBerry support, WiFi/GSM dual-mode support, off-system extension to cell and home phones, and enhanced desktop video support. This demonstrates the broad range of choices Avaya offers to help businesses meet the needs of mobile, distributed, home-based and work campus-based workers throughout an enterprise.