WAN set to connect up VoIP 'islands'

Wide area networks (WAN) have been suggested as a solution to the restricted reach of wireless voice over internet protocol (VoIP) provided by web-based private branch exchanges (IP PBX).

Currently these exchanges can only spread secure voice networks over a limited area, meaning that firms usually have to get a second IP PBX per area and join them up.

According to Jay Brandstadter of JRB Consulting, this means that "what we have, by and large, are islands of VoIP".

Mr Brandstadter was speaking at last week's Interop conference in Las Vegas where experts in web-based voice technology discussed whether WAN can provide the solution to this problem.

It was suggested that companies which choose to install WAN systems could spread their IP PBX services wider and also benefit from the optimisation abilities of the network.

These allow certain types of traffic to be prioritised which could allow VoIP call quality to be improved and boost the reliability of connections.