Since its adoption in 1997, the Voice over Packet Processor (VoPP) has progressed significantly. Previously, VoPP customers pioneered the VoIP industry as they possessed a large amount of technical abilities. It was simple to sell to these customers, as all that was required was the providing of a chip that performed the VoIP signal processing functionality (e.g. compression, echo cancellation) and a data book describing the device. Customers were given the ability to create the VoIP product themselves while creating minimal burden for the supplier.

Two to three years later things began to change. Companies with little development capabilities, still operated capable R&D departments and wanted to enter the VoIP market. The VoPP supplier had to provide a hardware reference design for these customers, usually with software supporting the various devices on the design, to ensure that the customer would have a relatively easy start and little investment in the VoIP part of this design. This attitude created a difficult challenge as the VoPP supplier needed to find a design that would suit most customers, meaning that the flexibility of using the VoPP was reduced. A further challenge that was presented was the significant software investment, both in making the design and in supporting it. The VoPP supplier had to have a specific infrastructure (software engineers, support engineers) to facilitate the reference design sell.

In the past two years, following the pullout from the telecom downturn, VoIP is becoming a commodity in many applications. Looking forward to 2006, the market for VoPP has broadened rapidly. New customers, requesting an addition of VoIP capabilities to their products, are looking for a complete solution, one that will require minimal effort to invest in, if at all. Customers do not necessarily want to develop solutions in-house, rather acquire them from the VoPP provider as a complete, ready for integration or production solution.

This final change in the market enhances the investments that need to be completed by the VoPP provider. The combination of silicon, DSP software, complete hardware reference design and support is essential for selling the VoPP solution. Since 1997, AudioCodes has utilized its accumulated experience in this market to successfully tackle these challenges. AudioCodes currently stands out as a vendor that supplies VoIP solutions for flexible business models: starting from complete, ready to use gateways for analog or digital applications, leading through to modules that are ready for integration into a customer’s product and finally a complete reference design that the customer would manufacture while AudioCodes supplies the VoPP chips. Customers can decide which specific product to purchase based on their time to market versus cost considerations. Customers can begin with a more integrated solution (e.g. Tulip AC494 ATA) and then smoothly migrate to a VoPP reference design based on a DSP (e.g. AC488/3 family) when reaching mass production.

No doubt that 2006 poses a great challenge for VoPP providers who are trying to support the growing demand in the marketplace. AudioCodes is ideally positioned to answer this challenge, offering a variety of products and flexible business models.