Siemensâ Hicomâ 150 E PBX

   Product Brief

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Date: February 24, 1999

NEC America, Inc.

Corporate Networks Group

1555 W. Walnut Hill Lane

Irving, Texas 75038

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Siemens Hicomâ 150 E PBX Series.

 

Siemens is hyping the Hicom 150 E as the box where you don’t have to settle for less, especially if you are in the small to medium sized business.  Attributes you will find yourself selling against include; the 150 is competitively priced, easy to configure and simple to maintain.  Siemens has finally added modularity to their ISDN interfaces which claim to provide dynamic high-speed digital internet and intranet access.  Siemens will then market their big PBX (HicomÒ 300) system attributes such as the OptisetÒ E digital telephone family with OptiGuideÒ, their point & click feature interface.

 

Siemens will claim investment protection by upgrading the customer from one model to another seamlessly!  Please refresh your memories by viewing the following chart on the so-called Siemens platform investment protection.

 

 

Chart 1

Hicom 150 Overview

 

Because of the competitive nature of this market and the plethora of vendors in this market segment, Siemens was forced to finally provide a system that gives small enterprise customers the same features and capabilities as large enterprise customers receive in the larger flagship PBXs.  These features include:

 

·        Worldwide System availability: The Hicom 150 E is a worldwide, multilingual communications platform.  Siemens has a worldwide service force in approximately 70 countries.  Hicom 150 E Office systems are serviced via direct and indirect channels.

 

·        Seamless communications integration: Siemens' long-range strategy includes seamless integration of voice, data, and video communications for more effective collaboration among users of Siemens systems.

 

·        Component compatibility and investment protection:  Siemens is set to introduce a standards-based multimedia-messaging product that will be compatible with PhoneMailÒ Plus.  Subscriber profile information, system information, and user interfaces will be transferable from PhoneMailÒ to any future Siemens multimedia messaging products.

 

·        Call center technologies:  Customer service has become the focus of many companies, no matter what size they are. Siemens is part of the growing number of major key and hybrid system vendors now offering integrated ACD options and pursuing ACD software development with CTI.

 

Introduction of the Hicom 150 E family of advanced communications servers further consolidates the HicomÒ 100 E and Hicom 150 E platforms. Over time, the Hicom 150 E will be the strategic key/hybrid system that Siemens offers in the Small-to-Medium Enterprise Market (SME), targeting businesses that need to support from 2 to 250 users. Hicom 150 E provides built-in support for ISDN, multimedia conferencing, and video.

 

Note: The Hicom 150 E family was available in North America in second quarter 1998. The Office PhoneMail family of voice messaging products was available in North America in third-quarter 1998. Siemens will offer ATIO Corp.'s modular CybercallÒ suite of call center products with its Hicom 150 E servers (this call center software was in place and working on the 150 E at the 1999 Dallas Call Center Show).

 

Hicom 150 E systems also claim to support industry-standard computer telephony (CT) interfaces, voice messaging, automated attendant, common telephone sets (Optiset E), user interfaces, serviceability features, software platforms, hardware technologies, call center and hotel applications, and voice and data integration.

 

With the Hicom 150 E system's availability in North America, Siemens can now make the claim that  the Hicom 150 E is a worldwide platform.     

 


Hicom 150E Sizing

 

The family of Hicom 150 E systems now supports between 5 and 250 lines and consists of 4 line-size optimized models:

 

·        HicomÒ 150 E OfficeProÒ--up to 250 subscriber lines

·        HicomÒ 150 E OfficeComÒ--up to 92 subscriber lines

·        HicomÒ 150 E OfficePointÒ--up to 20 subscriber lines

·        HicomÒ 150 E OfficeOneÒ--up to 12 subscriber lines (S0 fixed)

 

The family of "Office" Hicom systems was designed to bring big system functionality and advanced features to companies whose needs for additional lines and functionality are growing.   See Chart 2 below for system configurations of the above listed Hicom 150 E systems.

 

Chart 2:  Hicom 150 E System Configurations
 

 

 

OfficeOne

OfficePoint

OfficeCom

OfficePro

Max. Ports

12

36

122

384

Max. Telephone Sets (may vary by country)

12, 21 or 24 (1)

20

92

250

Max. Analog

4

12

84

250

Max. Digital (UP0/E)

4

16

48

240

Station Expansion Increments

--

8

8, 16

8, 16, 24

Max. Trunk Range

4

8

30

120

Trunk Expansion Increments

--

4, 8

4, 8

8

Peripheral Slots

--

2

6

18

Network Interfaces

S0

S0, loop start (HKZ), BRI, GL

S0, loop start (HKZ), S2M, BRI, GL, PRI, T1

S0, loop start (HKZ), S2M, E&M, PRI, T1, GL, DID

Cordless (DECT)

Cordless S

Cordless S

Cordless S

CMI

 Voice Mail Interface

Analog (VMIe)/digital (UP0/E)

Analog (VMIe)/digital (UP0/E)

Analog (VMIe)/digital (UP0/E)

Analog (VMIe)/digital (UP0/E)

Networking (CorNet N subset)

No

 No

Yes

Yes

LCR

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Paging

Simple via SLA

Simple via SLA

Simple via SLA

Comfort via TMOM

Attendant Position

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Attendant PC

No

No

Yes

Yes

CTI TAPI

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

ACL (CSTA)

No

No

Yes

Yes

Remote Maintenance

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

APS Transfer (optional)

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

 

 

 

 

ISDN

 

The Hicom 150 E offers telecommunications features associated with ISDN, as standard. The DSS1 (Digital Signaling Systems) standard created the basis for a uniform Pan-European communications structure so that ISDN services and features could be used in all countries that implement this standard. ISDN compatibility with the Hicom 150 E is S0 (2B+D) and S2M (30B+D) based.

 

The Hicom 150 E supports all the following recent Euro-ISDN features (Note:  the NEAX 2000 supports both North American and European ISDN standards without requiring any additional hardware):

 

·        Advice of Charge (AoC-D/E). The costs for all the services (telephony, fax, data) can be registered in units or monetary amounts during and at the end of the call.

 

·        Direct Dial In (DDI). Direct dialing in can be implemented from a Euro-ISDN PBX access on the terminal interface side (point-to-point).

 

·        User-to-User Signaling. During connection setup and clear down, an information block of 32 bytes can be sent in addition to standard signaling.

 

·        Multiple Subscriber Numbers (MSN). Multiple Subscriber Numbers can be assigned to the subscriber bus. If a LAN is connected to the subscriber bus, up to 98 addresses can be individually connected.

 

·        Subaddressing (SUB). On setting up a connection, DP systems can transfer up to 20 bytes in the same direction by means of suffix dialing in order to initialize special user solutions.

 

·        Transfer and Suppression of the Station Number. The calling number can be transferred to the called party's display (CLIP), or it can be suppressed (CLIR). The same applies in the reverse direction to the caller (COLP, COLR).

 

The Hicom 150 E system's modular ISDN interfaces also provide digital Internet and intranet access for workgroup and workpoint applications, including multimedia conferencing and video.

 

Cordless Mobility (DECT), Not Wireless

 

The Siemens Hicom 150 E supports cordless DECT sets with the system's feature set. For OfficePro, a built-in card solution is available that supports up to eight base stations and up to 32 handsets. An adapted server application can be connected for larger cordless requirements. Seamless handover and roaming support employees whose work takes them between sites. The Siemens DECT sets can be registered with up to four different locations for ease of contact. A single-cell DECT solution is available for the low end.

 

Networking

 

Corporate communications networks can be set up via digital S0 or S2M nailed-up connections between multiple Hicom systems with the CorNetÒ N protocol. The systems can be interlinked via public and/or private trunks creating a virtual private network. The Hicom 150 E OfficePro/OfficeCom can be used in this case as an end switch, transit switch, or gateway and can provide the master clock function.

 

Least Cost Routing (LCR)

 

The full range of Hicom 150 E models support LCR functionality.  The systems find the most cost-effective connection to send out a long-distance call when calls are made to telephone numbers outside of the corporate network.

 

Call Center Capability--North America

 

In North America, the optional Cybercall call center software package will be distributed with the Hicom 150 E to provide advanced call center capabilities (call routing, realtime ACD, reporting capabilities, CTI [TAPI, CAPI, CSTA], IVR, and outbound dialing) to companies that have small- to midsize call centers. Call center agents will be able to receive and process customer calls using the telephone, a fax, and the Web. 

 

Computer Telephony Integration (CTI)

 

The SmartsetÒ application provides desktop CTI, allowing the user to dial and log calls from a PC-based contact manager.  Smartset can also be integrated into call center applications.

 

Open Interfaces

 

The Hicom 150 E architecture supports the following open standards:

·        TAPI--First-party PC telephony

·        TAPI 2, CSTA, CT-Connect--Third-party client/server-based telephony

 

LAN Connectivity

 

For LAN connection, the Hicom LAN Bridge module can be integrated with the Hicom 150 E OfficePoint.  Siemens claims that the  Hicom LAN Bridge enables Ethernet networked PCs to access the public ISDN network and OfficeCom via the Hicom system to provide various applications in data communications, with Internet access and routing capabilities.


Multimedia Video

 

The Hicom 150 E provides multimedia applications with the Hicom videoset and videokit applications. The Hicom videoset is a videoconferencing system for managers and teams. The videokit application, a full-featured desktop PC video expansion kit with a MicrosoftÒ WindowsÒ interface, enables users to transmit images and data online, for display on a screen at any location.

 

Voice Applications

 

The Hicom 150 E supports the following voice processing features:

 

·        Hicom Office PhoneMailÒ    : a fully scalable voice and fax messaging system that provides dual-media, bilingual messaging capabilities specifically designed to digitally integrate with any of the Hicom 150 E communications servers. Office PhoneMail also offers multilingual capabilities, scalability, increased storage, fax store-and-forward, and fax-on-demand as optional features.

 

·        Hicom Office PhoneMail Entry: provides cost-effective voice messaging and an automated attendant in a card that plugs directly into the Hicom 150 E.

 

·        Both Hicom Office PhoneMail and Hicom Office PhoneMail Entry: include features such as off-site message notification, automated attendant, fax tone recognition, caller-controlled routing, company directory/dial by name, and day and night company greeting. Both systems are solidstate, plug-and-play products.

 

·        PhoneMail: an adaptable voice store-and-forward messaging system for time-lagged and local independent storage, retrieval, and distribution of voice messages.

 

·        PhoneMail Plus, an enhanced version of PhoneMail, offers: new call processing voice forms applications that let companies interface with the