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Overview
The MX250 is a media exchange that
integrates multimedia communications for
the enterprise into a compact system
that has standard interfaces for all
connections. The MX250 integrates the
functions of many devices previously
available only in several disparate
boxes. By integrating these functions
into a single unit, Zultys provides a
solution for your company?s
communication needs that is cost
effective and easily expanded.
 The
MX250 combines the functions of an
Internet gateway (switch and router)
with a PBX (line interface, analog
circuits, auto attendant, voice mail,
and ACD), and adds support for video
calls. The system uses SIP to
communicate with IP devices on the LAN
or WAN. This standard protocol allows
you to use the phone built into Windows
Messenger or desktop phones from many
manufacturers. Administrators use a
single GUI on a PC to configure and
monitor every aspect of the system.
Initial deployment of the system is
simple and straightforward. A list of
users can be imported and phones can be
automatically provisioned.
The MX250 connects to a standard
Ethernet switch and to that switch you
connect computers and phones. The
connection to the LAN is made with one
or two 100Base-T circuits, thereby
providing redundancy. Additional
redundancy is available with dual hard
discs in a RAID 1 configuration, and ac
and dc power inputs. Serviceability is
simplified with a removable fan tray and
clock battery.
The MX250 has three slots that
accommodate interfaces for connection to
the CO and ISP. Voice is supported on an
analog module. Voice and data are
supported on BRA, T1, and E1 modules.
PBX and Telephony
The MX250 comes standard with two analog
FXS circuits and has three slots to
accommodate telephony interfaces. You
can use modules to connect to analog
(FXS and FXO), ISDN BRA (S/T), T1, and
E1. You can configure the digital
interfaces to carry voice or data
traffic, or mixed voice and data.
Regardless whether you receive voice
service from a telephony interface or
over the WAN, the MX250 provides full
PBX functionality. You obtain these
features whether you use a soft phone,
an IP phone, or an analog telephone.
The MX250 supports T1 and E1 ISDN PRA
and T1 CAS. The CAS protocols are loop
start and ground start with caller ID,
and E&M wink with DID. The ISDN
protocols supported over T1 are Lucent
custom, Nortel custom, US National, and
Japanese ISDN. The ISDN protocol
supported over E1 is ETSI with
subaddressing. The ISDN protocols
supported over BRA are Japanese ISDN and
ETSI, with or without SPIDs.
The first two analog FXO circuits in
slot 1 connect directly to the two FXS
circuits on the system board in the
event of a complete power failure to
provide lifeline support.
The MX250 includes fax termination on
any telephony interface. Incoming faxes
can be answered by the MX250 and
converted to a graphical file which can
then be sent by email to a user or
retrieved using MXIE. When MXIE is
installed on a PC it installs a fax
printer. To send an outgoing fax, users
print to the MXIE fax printer from any
application. MXIE delivers the fax to be
sent to the MX250 and updates the sender
on the outcome of the transmission.
The MX250 provides music on hold through
an external connection, from the
Internet, or from its internal hard
disc. It supports overhead paging using
an FXS circuit or a 3½ mm audio output.
The system also supports paging through
the phones which can be separated into
multiple zones.
You can deploy the MX250 as an
independent system, with the MX250 as a
peripheral to an existing PBX, or with a
PBX as a peripheral to the MX250. The
MX250 can connect to other MX250s or
other standard SIP equipment, either
over LAN or WAN. G.729 compression is
supported to reduce
bandwidth requirements over a WAN.
Data Networking
There are two 10/100Base-T circuits. You
connect at least one of these to an
external switch to provide connectivity
to devices such as PCs and phones. You
can connect both circuits to switches
for redundancy and use the spanning tree
protocol on the MX250 to handle fail
over.
The MX250 can function as an edge router
and connect to an ISP using Point to
Point Protocol (PPP). Default and static
routes can be provisioned to control the
proper routing of voice and data
traffic.
The system incorporates a firewall with
NAT, for connection to the Internet.
Also DHCP, TFTP, and NTP servers provide
services within the enterprise. You can
optionally disable any of these
functions if you provide them external
to the MX250.
The MX250 can provide SIP application
layer gateway (ALG) function when the
internal NAT and firewall functions are
used. This allows you to make SIP calls
outside of the private address space
used within the enterprise.
The MX250 provides VPN functionality for
50 users. This allows remote users to
securely access all functions of the
MX250 and the corporate network.
MXIE - The Tool for User Productivity
MXIE (pronounced "mixee") is a PC
application that interfaces with the
MX250. This software can be used by all
people in the enterprise whether the
person is logged in as an individual, an
operator, or a member of an ACD group.
Click here for details on MXIE.
Encryption
The MX250 supports 128-bit AES
encryption. This allows you to fully
encrypt conversations within the
enterprise. In addition, you can secure
traffic over the PSTN or WAN that may
leave the enterprise.
ACD - Automatic
Call Distribution
An ACD routes calls to a group of agents
based on flexible distribution rules.
You can have up to 64 ACD or hunt
groups, each with up to 64 agents.
Routing to a specific ACD group can be
either based on the called party number,
or through an automated attendant or
operator.
Skill based routing is achieved by
assigning different priority levels to
agents. Users can be members of multiple
ACD groups simultaneously and if
desired, can also log into the system as
an individual. This allows them to make
and receive personal calls.
Productivity is enhanced using the
presence and instant messaging
capabilities in MXIE. As an agent
answers a call, MXIE automatically
changes the presence, and includes a
wrap up state at the end of the call.
Each agent can view the presence of
other agents in a group, allowing for
supervisor monitoring.
If agents are using a popular CRM
package that has a TAPI interface, the
caller?s information can be displayed
with a screen pop. Agents can transfer
calls by dragging the session within
MXIE to another agent.
Auto Attendant and Voice Mail
You can have up to 64 auto attendants to
service different applications or
languages. You can configure schedules
for each auto attendant to provide
different behavior at different times of
the day and on different days of the
week. If you do not schedule any
attendant to be active, the MX250 routes
calls to an operator.
The voice mail has capacity to store 400
hours of speech. You can select how this
is divided among the users.
The MX250 supports a total of 24
simultaneous voice streams to the auto
attendant and voice mail. This means
that incoming calls can be answered or
routed to voice mail even under high
loads. Further, all incoming calls can
be recorded ? ideal for call center
applications .
Operators
You can define 64 groups of operators.
Within each group you can have 64
operators and can assign them
priorities. Therefore, calls are routed
to some operators only when the primary
receptionists are busy or not available.
Operators use MXIE and do not need any
special equipment. This allows you to
locate operators anywhere, even at a
different site.
Connection Options
 To
supply phone service to a user, you have
multiple choices. Using a standard IP
phone with a built in switch, you need
only run a single Ethernet circuit to
the desk. The PC is connected to the
other side of the phone. If you already
have two Ethernet circuits to the desk,
you can connect one to the phone and the
other to the PC.
You can use the multimedia capabilities
of the PC by connecting a headset to it.
You need only run a soft phone
application on the PC, such as Windows
Messenger. Such an application can allow
you to easily make or receive voice and
video calls at minimal cost.
Call Detail Recording
The MX250 records call data to provide
comprehensive reports about users and
traffic. Using these reports, you can
reconcile your phone company's bill. You
can generate predefined reports using
the reporting tools included with the
MX250. The system integrates Crystal
Reports allowing you to create custom
reports.
The MX250 allows read access to its
internal MySQL CDR database. Thorough
documentation is provided which
describes the database structure. This
allows for additional customization and
the development of reports specific to
the needs of an organization.
Quality of Service
At Layer 2, the MX250 implements QoS
based upon IEEE 802.1P. You can define
up to 8 priority levels or classes of
service. Based upon these levels,
traffic can be marked and placed into
different queues. Delay sensitive
traffic such as voice and video are
placed into priority queues, whereas
data traffic is placed into lower
priority queues. Queue servicing is
optimized so that no particular queue is
starved and throughput is maximized.
At Layer 3, QoS based upon
Differentiated Services (RFC 2474 and
2475) is implemented. The MX250 is
capable of marking the differentiated
services codepoints (DSCPs) based upon
the type of traffic received. In this
way, the MX250 can enforce a QoS policy
set up by the Administrator
for traffic entering the enterprise?s
domain.
System Capacities
When you purchase the MX250, it is
equipped with all the hardware necessary
to support 250 users. A minimal system
supports 5 users. You subsequently
expand the functionality and capacity by
purchasing software licenses for the
system. You add these licenses without
having to power down the system and do
not need to return the system for any
hardware upgrades.
The system does not keep track of
devices such as PCs and the MX250 does
not impose a limit to the number you can
have on your network.
The MX250 allows each user to have eight
contacts where he or she can be reached.
Any analog phone or SIP device can be a
contact. When a user is called, the
MX250 can attempt to reach the user at
any or all of these contacts, following
rules defined by the user.
The MX250 can accommodate 1000
concurrent SIP registrations. A SIP
registration is the action of an IP
device indicating to the MX250 where it
can be reached.
With the MXgroup option, you can group
up to 40+ MX250 systems to have a total
system capacity of 10,000+ users.
System Administration
The system administration software gives
you complete control over the system
from a single integrated interface. The
software runs under Windows and the PC
can be located anywhere in your network.
You can have multiple administrators and
can assign different privileges to each.
The dial plan is intuitive and allows
flexibility to have extension numbers of
different lengths, internal and external
emergency numbers, and call blocking.
You assign the extension to the user,
not to a physical phone.
You add the data about users manually or
import the data from an export file of
another source.
You can define the devices that you are
using and assign them to users. As users
move locations you do not need to make
any changes to the configuration on the
MX250. Users retain their extensions
regardless where they plug their phone
in your enterprise.
You select the auto attendant and voice
mail scripts and the schedule for these
scripts to operate. You can modify or
create scripts through the GUI.
All of the configuration, the voice
mail, and CDR can be periodically backed
up. The software allows you to monitor
the status of any user or device on the
system, and also to monitor SIP, CAS,
and ISDN protocols. The MX250 can send
events to a Syslog server.
Power
The MX250 derives its power from ac, ?48
Vdc, or both. The ac input operates from
90 Vac to 240 Vac, 47 Hz to 60 Hz. The
maximum power drawn is 100 W.
You can connect a ?48 V battery that
must supply 100 W. Zultys supplies a
battery system that provides about six
hours of backup power in the event of an
ac failure. You can concatenate these
supplies to provide longer backup.
Environmental
Operating temperature: 10°C to
40°C (50°F to 104°F)
Storage temperature: 0°C to 50°C
(32°F to 122°F)
Weight: 8.2 kg (18 lb). Shipping
weight 10.5 kg (23 lb)
Size: 430 mm (W) x 269 mm (D) x
85 mm (H) (17" x 10" x 3")
Mount: Standard 19" rack from
front, mid, or rear; 2 RU (89 mm)
Safety: UL 60950, CSA-C22.2, EN
60950:2001
EMI: FCC Part 15, ICES-003 class
A, CISPR 22, AS/NZS 3548 Class A
EMC: CISPR 24 (EN55024:1998),
EN61000-4
Warranty: one year
Technology
The MX250 was designed and built from
its inception to be a media exchange.
Most similar products were originally
designed with IP in their core and then
telephony was added on top, or they are
traditional PBXs designed with telephony
at their core and then IP was added on
top. Those systems use proprietary
phones and have closed architectures.
Conversely, the architecture of the
MX250 has been optimized to combine
voice and data technologies while using
standard interfaces and phones.
Internally, there are two computers
running real-time Linux. Together, they
perform 1400 MIPS. The Linux operating
system yields a product that has very
high reliability and allows easy
introduction of new services and
features. The MX250 has one or two SCSI
hard discs. The two discs operate in a
RAID 1 configuration. The discs store
the voice mail, application code, data
bases, and call detail records.
The MX250 uses the SIP protocol which is
now widely recognized as the standard
for IP telephony. The MX250 includes a
SIP registrar, user agent client, user
agent server, and presence server. You
can use any standard SIP phone or SIP
soft phone with the MX250 making it the
second IP communications system that is
truly open.
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