As the number of small and medium sized businesses around the world upgrading to Voice over IP (VoIP) is set to explode over the next few years, a unique opportunity exists for manufacturers and service providers to quickly deliver advanced products to this market. Texas Instruments Incorporated delivers the field-proven VoIP solutions to support this industry evolution, with its complete end-to-end VoIP portfolio incorporating TI's digital signal processing power to support the features and performance demanded by SMBs. The robust quality, enhanced security and quick delivery of products based on TI technology offer an exceptional investment for millions of SMBs that will transition to next- generation networks and service within the next five years.

According to a recent Yankee Group report, the SMB VoIP market is expected to reach more than $1 billion by 2009, growing by over 500 percent in a very short timeframe. With over 20 years of system level knowledge and expertise, TI is well-positioned to meet this increasing demand with its high quality, cost-effective and flexible VoIP solutions to power the devices best suited to meet SMB requirements. TI's VoIP products provide scalable platforms to support the features that SMBs demand, such as seamless growth, computer and telephony integration and, most importantly, cost savings with low-cost devices and support for existing equipment like analog phones and fax machines.

"Recognizing the unique challenges SMBs face when evaluating and deploying VoIP solutions, Polycom is working closely with leading VoIP companies like TI to develop the products and technology that will best help companies of all sizes meet their next generation telecommunications requirements," said Sunil Bhalla, Senior Vice President and General Manager of Polycom's Voice Communication Division. "Features like our high definition voice can help SMBs enhance their VoIP experience, while delivering unprecedented, lifelike voice quality to bridge distances."

Over the last few years, the widespread availability of broadband data services has enabled many SMBs to reach a larger, global audience via websites and e-mail communication. At the same time, prohibitive long-distance telephone costs have limited their ability to offer the most personalized and complete service to these customers around the world. Now, however, with the cost-savings and rapid availability of VoIP, SMBs can reach out to customers multi-nationally and globally like never before.

A key concern for SMBs adopting VoIP is quality of service. The digital signal processors at the core of TI's VoIP technology deliver enhanced voice quality and an exceptional depth of experience. At the same time, TI is also embedding its PIQUA quality management technology into its end-to-end VoIP solutions, enabling service providers to deliver an advanced level of service quality to consumer and business subscribers moving to VoIP.

In addition to quality and performance, VoIP business subscribers require additional levels of security to protect their resources and service. VoIP communications can be particularly vulnerable to attacks and breaches, making security a major concern for businesses of all sizes. TI has spent a considerable amount of effort developing unique security features, such as its Static Packet Filter (SPF), to provide protection against the most common forms of Layer 3 and Layer 4 Denial of Service (DoS) attacks and support of the continually evolving encryption and authentication standards. This improves existing security for IP communications while giving business users the comfort and assurance that their network is secure.

"With our considerable experience and real-world deployments in VoIP, TI understands that VoIP products for SMBs must be easy-to-use and affordable, while offering the features and quality expected in traditional phone systems and an added layer of security to protect critical business resources," said Fred Zimmerman, executive director, customer premises solutions, Texas Instruments. "We see SMBs at the heart of VoIP's future and work closely with our customers, service providers and third parties to develop the products that best meet the demands of SMBs while offering valuable features and performance."

With an extensive, industry leading portfolio of end-to-end solutions that address all aspects of VoIP for SMBs, including IP phones, two and four port VoIP gateways, medium density gateways and IP PBXs, TI, working with third- parties around the globe, helps SMBs ease the transition to IP networks. TI also offers Power-over-Ethernet solutions with many of its VoIP products, which allows the end-customer to deploy VoIP without additional wiring expense because power can be delivered over the existing CAT-5 Ethernet cable. TI's field-proven technology offer OEMs a future-proof technology investment for existing and emerging market requirements, while providing SMBs the ability to scale in size and performance, as their needs evolve.