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Horizon Gateway 2000The first solution developed by GoS Networks which leverages the Horizon platform is the Horizon Gateway 2000. In one device, this product provides all of the critical features needed for a small business to embrace and leverage IP communications; hosted PBX, unified communications or SIP Trunking. Ease of Use The Horizon Gateway 2000 is designed to be dropped shipped to the end user with zero touch on the part of the service provider. This is all made possible via TR-069 management. TR-069 puts the service provider in complete control. The end user experience is as simple as logging into a wifi hotspot. Plug in Horizon, connect the WAN, connect the PC and punch in a user name and password. Within minutes Horizon is completely ready. Horizon provides an intuitive user interface which is demoed in this screenshare video:
Guarantee of Service (GoS) and VoiceQoS GoS Networks believes that the key factor which is holding back greater adoption of hosted communications is quality of service. Not only quality of service but also empowering service providers to deliver with quality over network links they don't control, commonly referred to as bring your own broadband (BYOB). Service providers must ensure the real time delivery of multiple applications. First and foremost GoS protects voice but does far more as it also protects video, collaboration and other critical applications. Additionally, GoS is extremely efficient and allows for complete utilization of the network connection. GoS Networks' patented VoiceQoStm SIP proxy automatically handles the QoS, Call Admission Control, NAT/Firewall traversal and Emergency Call Prioritization. MOS voice quality monitoring delivers end-point statistics to the service provider to confirm service performance and identify network trends to pre-empt service failure. For more on GoS, click here Directly from the user interface the small business customer has access to complete call logs for all lines, 2 FXS and up to 20 SIP endpoints. In addition, the end user can view MOS scores at the completion of each call. The platform also charts calls by duration, incoming and outgoing calls and time of day. This provides additional insight in real time. For example, if a small business owner is concerned about improper international calls in the evening they can now verify this in a simple fashion. Secure Wireless LAN Horizon supports 802.11b/g, using WEP (128bit), WPA or WPA2 security. WEP security is used as default (to ensure backwards compatibility). The platform will have Wi-Fi encryption installed at the factory; the user is required to install the WEP key into the dialogue box that appears on a PC etc. when a Wi-Fi network is detected. The WEP key can be found on the outside of the box. The end user can opt for WPA security which is more secure and select their own WPA password. Future iterations will allow for multiple SSIDs, support for additional access points, 802.11N and other advanced features. Web Server The embedded web server provides a great deal of functionality and opens the door to many exciting future enhancements in an easy fashion. Today the web server can be used by the end user to share files. Simply plug in a USB stick, provide someone with the IP address or web address, Horizon supports DynDNS, and the end user has instant access to files. Access to the USB stick can also be protected by a username and password, all which can be easily set from the user interface. Firewall The built-in firewall provides complete protection for the small business. The service provider can pre-configure a complete set of rules to protect the end user immediately and the customer has the ability to then set custom rules for further protection. The Horizon includes an advanced feedback mechanism with configurable thresholds. These indicate to the service provider how a particular unit performs by providing information about call quality, internet connectivity and attacks on the firewall. The end user can view this information directly from the interface and alarms are automatically sent to the service provider when different thresholds are met. Virtual Private Networks Horizon possesses rich VPN capabilities. Horizon provides a termination point for a single IPsec VPN tunnel for data communications and SIP sessions. It supports both open and restricted access and offers two types of configuration options, either by the service provider via TR-069 or by the end-user via a USB stick. VPNs are established via certificates. The VPN can provide secure VoIP to the service provider, or to connect SIP phones in a branch office to an IP-PBX in a central office. Horizon can operate either in VPN pass-through mode or in VPN termination mode. Voice Failover One disadvantage of VoIP (or indeed any converged service) is that it relies on a sophisticated customer premises device. If this device fails (through loss of either electrical power or WAN connectivity) the service is lost. To overcome this, Horizon includes a fail-over relay that connects the analogue phone ports to the DSL/PSTN* line in the event of power loss or WAN link failure, so that calls (for example, emergency calls) can still be made. *Horizon Gateway 2000 comes with either a DSL WAN or Ethernet WAN. In the case of Ethernet WAN there is a lifeline for a PSTN line. |
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