Lucent Technologies 555-661-150 manual Benefits of Networking

MERLIN LEGEND Communications System Release 6.1		Issue 1
Network Reference 555-661-150		August 1998
1 Introduction
	Networking Concepts	Page 1-4
	Benefits of Networking	1

Available for Hybrid/PBX mode systems, the private network features of the MERLIN LEGEND Communications System Release 6.0 and later provide the following advantages for geographically dispersed organizational sites:

■Toll Savings. Private networked trunks allow you to realize significant cost savings on toll calls by performing tandem switching in the following two ways:

—Callers on a local system can reach the PSTN via outside trunks connected to other systems in a private network, avoiding toll charges or substantially decreasing the cost of toll calls. For example, if you are in Cincinnati and another site in your company is in Dallas, you can make a call to a number in the Dallas local calling area over your private network, decreasing toll costs.

—In addition, organizations use private networked trunks to make calls between networked systems, which may be geographically distant from one another. Using the example above, from your office in Cincinnati you can dial an extension at a sister site in Dallas, just as you would dial an extension on your own local system, without a costly long-distance phone call. You simply dial the extension number.

■Service Cost Savings. In addition to toll call savings, there are two other ways that organizations can save on service costs incurred from telecommunications providers that provide PSTN access:

—You order a point-to-point T1 circuit from a service provider, then use system programming to set it up for tandem PRI services. As necessary, a service provider provides amplification for PRI tandem trunks in cases where the distance between networked systems is great enough to distort signals, but the service provider does not supply switching services.

—You can tailor your use of PRI B-channels with drop-and-insert equipment that allows fractional use of T1 channels for non-MERLIN LEGEND data/video communications between sites, while keeping the remaining T1 channels for PRI voice or data traffic.

NOTE:

The 24th T1 channel must not be dropped before reaching the MERLIN LEGEND Communications System because MERLIN LEGEND uses the 24th channel as the PRI D-channel or signalling channel.

—You can tailor your use of T1 channels to support a mix of T1-emulated tandem tie trunks for voice or data communications at 56 kbps per channel, allowing 2B data transfers at 112 kbps. The system also allows fractional use of point-to-point T1 tandem trunks with drop-and-insert equipment.