Seeking to cut costs during this slower economy, an organization that arranges dental care for underserved U.S. children reportedly is turning to a Swedish company for a telecommunications upgrade to VoIP.

 

Officials at Kool Smiles say they’ve replaced their traditional telephony system with SIP trunking from Ingate Systems, a Stockholm-based company that develops firewall technology and products that enable SIP communications for the enterprise while maintaining control and security at the network edge.

 

According to Mark Blomquist, co-founder and chief technical architect at Atlanta-based Kool Smiles, the nationwide dental practice’s switch to VoIP has saved 40 percent in communications costs. The Ingate solution, with new IP-PBX (News - Alert), phones and network upgrades, is expected to pay for itself with a year.

 

“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,” Blomquist said. “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.”

 

Generally speaking, SIP trunking is a service offered by Internet telephony service providers so that businesses can adopt VoIP using their Internet connection. That way, they can communicate with others who rely on the PSTN, since the enterprise IP-PBX is connected to the service provider’s PSTN gateways over the Internet.

 

Here’s how Ingate diagrams its SIP trunking technology:

 

 

According to Steven Johnson (News - Alert), Ingate’s president, 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,” Johnson said. “SIP trunks can keep communications costs at a minimum so that companies can focus on building their business.”

 

Specifically, Ingate’s so-called “SIParator” – a family of products that includes the Ingate SIParator 60, shown at right – with a SIP trunk software module made it possible for Kool Smiles to connect their IP-PBX to an Internet telephony service provider’s SIP trunk. That solves interoperability issues between the IP-PBX and the SIP trunking service provider while eliminating the Network Address Translation traversal issues with the protocol.

 

But that’s technical talk. At bottom, Ingate offers a technology that’s gaining traction as a cost-saver in this slower economy.

 

For Kool Smiles, the power of that technology has gone a long way toward rewarding its clients.

 

“Our primary goal is to assure we can expand access to quality dental care for children who otherwise may not have access,” Blomquist said. “Reducing costs and streamlining our support organizations enables us to focus more resources on our clinical and community responsibilities.”