Forty Percent Reduction in Communications Costs
by Replacing Traditional Telephony with VoIP
ATLANTA, GEORGIA and STOCKHOLM — January 6, 2009 — To rein in growing communications costs, Kool Smiles, a network of local dental offices with a mission to expand access to high quality dental care to underserved children and young adults, has replaced their traditional telephony system with SIP trunking enabled by Ingate® Systems. As a result, Kool Smiles has been able to transition its nationwide network of dental practices and call center to secure Voice-over-IP (VoIP). The shift from traditional telephony to SIP trunking has resulted in a 40 percent reduction of communications costs, with the complete installation, including a new IP-PBX, phones, network upgrades and the Ingate solution, paying for itself in twelve months.
Kool Smiles is using Ingate´s SIP trunk software solutions with an Ingate SIParator® at the edge of their network to normalize the SIP signaling between the IP-PBX and their SIP trunking service provider and also to secure the IP-PBX. The company has shifted more than 35,000 calls a day to toll-free Internet telephony, which is now live on 1,800 handsets.
“Our primary goal is to assure we can expand access to quality dental care for children who otherwise may not have access. Reducing costs and streamlining our support organizations enables us to focus more resources on our clinical and community responsibilities,” said Mark Blomquist, co-founder and Chief Technical Architect, Kool Smiles. “Ingate´s solutions provide the advanced level of security necessary for this medical environment and the tools to make the interface to the service provider hassle-free. The Ingate products also offer us the flexibility we need to scale up as we roll out new dental offices. We chose Ingate after a thorough research process; they offered a complete, fully interoperable solution, which has met all of our expectations.”
Ingate is a leading developer of enabling SIP trunking, NAT traversal, remote connectivity solutions and SIP security edge devices for service providers, IP-PBX vendors and end-users. SIP trunks rapidly reduce costs by eliminating the need for an enterprise PSTN gateway, unused BRI/PRI capacity, expensive and underutilized phone lines or trunks at remote offices, and by providing PSTN termination in the local area.
“SIP trunks are ideal for growing businesses with satellite offices. Being successful enough to add a new branch to the network no longer means having to increase your telephony costs,” said Steven Johnson, President, Ingate Systems. “SIP trunks can keep communications costs at a minimum so that companies can focus on building their business.”
The award-winning Ingate SIParator with the SIP trunk software module made it possible for Kool Smiles to connect their IP-PBX to an Internet telephony service provider´s SIP trunk by solving interoperability issues between the IP-PBX and the SIP trunking service provider, and at the same time eliminating the Network Address Translation (NAT) traversal issues with the protocol while maintaining the security and integrity of the network. It is a flexible solution that has proven interoperability with leading SIP-based IP-PBX systems and service provider networks.
Working in parallel to the traditional firewall, the SIParator handles the traversal and security of SIP traffic while leaving the original firewall in place to secure data traffic. The SIParator offers the highest level of security for VoIP, supporting Secure Real Time Protocol (SRTP) which provides one of the most secure environments for Internet telephony and VoIP applications available.
About Kool Smiles
Founded
in 2002, Kool Smiles is a network of local dental offices dedicated
to expanding access to high quality dental care for children in
underserved communities. In addition to accepting most
insurance plans, Kool Smiles is proud to offer services to children
and young adults covered by Medicaid and State Children's Health
Insurance Programs (SCHIP). Kool Smiles also provides oral
health education programs through partnerships with community schools
and organizations. To find a local Kool Smiles dentist, please visit
www.koolsmilespc.com.
About Ingate ® Systems
Ingate ® Systems develops firewall technology and products that enable SIP communications for the enterprise while maintaining control and security at the network edge. Ingate has a long history of developing next-generation firewall technology that solves the NAT/firewall traversal issue with SIP. In addition to an extensive line of Ingate Firewall ® products, the company also produces the award-winning Ingate SIParator ® a device that connects to an existing network firewall to seamlessly enable SIP communications. Ingate products currently protect the networks of retail companies, financial institutions, industrial firms, government agencies and small-to-large enterprises throughout Europe, Asia and North America. Additionally, Ingate has established the SIP Trunking Network at www.siptrunk.org, an educational resource that aggregates information from throughout the SIP trunking community in an industry-wide effort to educate enterprises about SIP trunking, to help simplify deployments.
Ingate Systems AB is headquartered in Sweden with offices in Stockholm and Linköping. Its wholly owned subsidiary, Ingate Systems Inc., is located in Hollis, New Hampshire. For more information on Ingate Systems, visit www.ingate.com.
For more information, please contact:
Hillary Call, Public
Relations Manager
Ingate Systems
(917) 414-9262
SIP and
email: hillary@ingate.com
Geoffrey
Freeman, Director of Marketing
Kool Smiles
gfreeman@ncdrllc.com
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