Despite the downturn in the economy – in fact, because of the downturn in the economy – small to medium sized businesses everywhere are adopting VoIP telephone service.

Now that VoIP is considered a “mature” technology – it’s been around long enough to be considered “battle hardened” and “tried and true” – it no longer takes the leap of faith that it did even a few years ago to make the switch from traditional telephone service.

Even those companies which haven’t yet switched have come to recognize that not only does VoIP significantly reduce communications costs, it also helps improve collaboration, increase operational efficiency and boost employee productivity. What’s more, most VoIP services today have improved to the point where they deliver the same level of reliability and quality-of-service that traditional phone service delivers.

As a result, many firms are investing in new equipment, systems and architecture in order to upgrade their networks to VoIP. They’ve come to realize that by making this investment now, they can start reaping the cost savings and operational efficiencies that VoIP brings, which in turn will help them weather this economic “perfect storm” we are in (which currently shows no sign of abating).

But there remains the issue of network readiness – and this is the “pain point” that causes some companies continue to be apprehensive – perhaps even intimidated. It’s a fact that most company LANs are woefully inadequate to support voice – and for some, making the investment to upgrade the network can be a pretty tough pill to swallow.

For those small businesses that aren’t ready to converge voice onto the LAN, there is an affordable alternative: With Phybridge’s UniPhyer appliance, companies can deploy a reliable VoIP phone system using existing phone cabling, thus creating a “parallel network” for handling just voice.

With UniPhyer, companies can deftly sidestep the challenges of deploying voice across the LAN – while at the same time gaining all the useful features and functionality, as well as cost savings, that VoIP can bring. Basically all a company needs is the UniPhyer appliance and the IP phones (Uniphyer works with practically all manufacturers’ IP phones, including Mitel (News - Alert), Avaya and Polycom (News - Alert), as well as virtually all VoIP services). Depending on the number of phone lines, the system can be installed in as a little as an hour.

UniPhyer works with a company’s existing PBX (News - Alert) – or it can be connected to the main switch on the company LAN – thus companies can still gain all the benefits of a converged network, including integration with CRM and other back-office systems, only without having to actually pile voice onto the LAN.

Phybridge announced today that an un-named major financial institution recently deployed its UniPhyer appliance and, as such, was able to deploy VoIP at a lower cost and without any service disruptions.

Specifically the firm converted 40 of 200 telephones on three office floors to VoIP – without having to undertake a network overhaul. UniPhyer is ideal for these partial or “hybrid” deployments – the system allows companies to get their feet wet with VoIP and roll it out gradually across the organization. The UniPhyer appliance comes in 24 and 48-port models – and is easily expandable by simply daisy-chaining units together.

One the main advantages of Phybridge’s UniPhyer appliance is that it also delivers Power over Ethernet over existing CAT5 phone lines. This solves the problem of powering up the IP phones (in other words, there’s no need to run a separate power cord to each phone). The device has a rather remarkable 1,200 feet-per-line reach.

Another advantage of the system is that it harnesses the point-to-point topology of the traditional phone network: It facilitates a dedicated path for each “session,” using a phone line that is dedicated for voice (in other words, no need for data and voice to co-mingle on the same network). That, in turn, results in two main benefits: For one, signal quality is completely ensured, meaning companies gain a reliable phone system that delivers crystal-clear sound quality that is on par with, or even exceeds that of traditional service. The other advantage is simply what was stated before: Companies avoid the unexpected disasters that can occur when network traffic peaks, which can not only degrade phone service and overall network performance – and, in the case of really poor planning, a complete network failure.

"The Phybridge UniPhyer is a more customer centric application that leverages proven technology to convert your reliable telephony infrastructure into a complete Parallel IP network with Power over Ethernet -- ideal for unified communications and IP telephony,” said John Croce, CEO of Phybridge, in a release. "At approximately one third the cost of traditional deployment, this game changing technology allows you to allocate more budget to applications and training while offering a risk free, quick and easy way to unite your voice and data networks. We call it optimizing your network for unified communications."

Phybridge -- which recently launched the “#1 VoIP Enabler” channel on TMCnet -- announced in May that its UniPhyer VoIP appliance, aka the “VoIP Enabler,” is now rated Avaya compliant and thus interoperates with Avaya’s (News - Alert) IP PBXs, phones and other equipment. Specifically, UniPhyer has been compliance-tested for compatibility with Avaya Communication Manager, Avaya IP Office and all current Avaya IP Telephones.

In addition, Phybridge announced that it is now a member of the Avaya DevConnect (News - Alert) program, an initiative to develop, market and sell innovative third-party products that interoperate with Avaya technology.