Martin Northend, Head of Product Business Management at Siemens, “HiPath 2000 is undergoing product introduction for the UK and we expect to launch the system somewhere between July and September this year. The product has been developed out of a project Siemens undertook for Deutche Telecom and was designed to be hooked up to a public SIP network.”
A wide array of connectivity options would appear to be key to the HiPath 2000 with Northend confirming SIP trunking as well as standard ISDN interfaces.
“It’s all IP and can accommodate up to 30 users with IP handsets with the fill feature set of the HiPath 3000. Other interfaces include DSL, the ability to add five wireless access points, an inbuilt four port switch and integrated firewall – all in a single 1u box.
The new HiPath 2000 IP PBX is said by Siemens to be "tailor-made" for small businesses with fewer than 30 employees and promises resellers easy installation and administration and all the advantages of IP at a reasonable price.
HiPath 2000 is based on a Linux operating system. For redundancy, Siemens optiPoint telephones can re-register with a secondary gatekeeper such as a HiPath 2000, HiPath 3000, HiPath 4000 or HiPath 5000; SIP devices can also register to a HiPath 8000.
Two models are available. HiPath 2020 is designed for small businesses and branch offices with up to 20 employees. HiPath 2020 supports a maximum of 20 IP stations with 10 user licenses included in the base price of the system. HiPath 2030 supports up to 30 IP stations with 10 user licenses included and features a pre-installed Integrated Voicemail Module with two ports, 24 mailboxes, two hours of recording storage, auto attendant, announcements and 16 languages – any three of which can be loaded. An integrated voice mail capability is not available for HiPath 2020; however, the system can connect to a centralised voicemail system as part of a HiPath network, for example, HiPath 4000 with HiPath Xpressions, or a third party voice mail system.
Businesses that deploy the HiPath 2000 can take advantage of productivity applications from Siemens, including "SimplyPhone" for Outlook or Lotus Notes that enables telephone functionality using a PC and "Personal Call Manager," a Web-based user management tool for users to specify call routing parameters such as call forwarding based on Caller ID, time of day or day of week, for example.
Several IP telephones are available for the HiPath family, including Siemens optiPoint 420 family with basic and advanced models, optiClient software-based telephones and the optiPoint WL2 professional, an 802.11g wireless LAN telephone.