Metro Access Network accredited by Avaya Labs in an industry first
Product Development Engineer, David Flanagan explains how Macquarie Telecom’s Metro
Access Network (MAN) has been accredited by Avaya Labs as ‘customer ready’ for VoIP.
It’s a first for the telecommunications industry in Australia. A Macquarie Telecom
customer’s VoIP services running over Metro Access Network (MAN) being awarded
accreditation by Avaya Labs (the world-class Research and Development arm of Avaya Inc.)
The test was conducted by Avaya Labs between Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane using
active VoIP measurement devices in the customer’s network at those locations.
The test results showed that the Macquarie Telecom MAN and Avaya PABX network were
properly configured to support for Quality of Service (QoS) and perform according to the
specifications required by Avaya Labs.
Background
A Voice over IP (VoIP) accreditation test was conducted using a voice simulation test
to assess performance of the end-to-end network paths of the customer network. It also
needed to verify the Quality of Service (QoS) configurations between the Avaya PABX
systems and the Macquarie Metro Access Network (MAN).
Scope and Methodology
The test was conducted on an existing Macquarie VoIP customer network between Sydney,
Melbourne and Brisbane using active VoIP measurement devices in the customer network at
those locations. VoIP calls were injected into the network and measurements were taken for
delay, latency, packet loss and jitter to assess the overall Quality of Service (QoS)
provided by the Metro Access Network (MAN).
The simulation of VoIP traffic is a complex iterative process. The process allows a
skilled consultant to find, analyse and resolve technical problems as well as accurately
predict the performance of the network under various VoIP traffic loads.
Avaya used a dedicated propriety tool, called ExpertNet, to generate simulated
Real-time Transport Protocol (RTP) streams. The data from the traffic simulation is
imported into an ExpertNet database developed by Avaya Labs specifically to analyse VoIP
quality and confirm network interoperability and configuration of QoS.
Test Results
The test results show that the Macquarie MAN and Avaya PABX networks were properly
configured to support for QoS and performed according to specification. The test results
show that mis-marked data traffic interpreted as Voice by the MAN can quickly degrade the
performance of the allocated Voice bandwidth for an individual customer. This confirms
that it is vitally important for the customer and Macquarie Telecom to closely monitor all
traffic entering its MAN network marked as ‘Voice’. This is achieved using online
equipment such as Macquarie Telecom’s QoS Performance Reporting tools.
Macquarie Telecom and its partners jointly sell and support Avaya-based IP telephony
solutions. Customers benefit from a single point-of-contact for the specification, supply,
fault-management and maintenance of Avaya PBX and IP telephony solutions. In addition, a
single consolidated bill is provided to customers for all their products and services. | 
