Like private-sector enterprises, many of today’s government agencies are faced with the need to unify diverse IT systems and merge communications infrastructures. IT consolidation saves equipment and training costs and eases the management burden. It also improves operational efficiency, increases inter-agency cooperation and helps make employees more productive. Agencies are able to share services and technologies with no negative impact on security or network resilience.

Cost-Effective Convergence
3Com® IP telephony solutions integrate voice and data traffic over a single communications network, providing ease of use, business-class functionality, substantial cost savings and investment assurance. With a 3Com Voice over IP (VoIP) solution, the agency can leverage its communications infrastructures while providing the same voice quality, reliability and calling features that employees get with a traditional PBX system. Furthermore, users can take advantages of advanced capabilities that only VoIP and Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) can deliver, including unified messaging, multimedia conferencing and mobility support.

3Com IP telephony platforms enhance collaboration by linking distributed sites into one unified, agency-wide phone system using the Internet and a wide area network (WAN) to reduce call charges. 3Com voice-ready switches minimize the cost and complexity of adding or moving IP telephones by detecting the phones and assigning them to ports. And 3Com in-the-wall IntelliJack (R) switches add new ports for voice and data without running new cables or taking up desk space. All these convergence benefits are available at attractive price points that help agencies stretch their IT budgets.

Integrating Wired and Wireless LANs
3Com offers high-performance switching platforms that combine wired and wireless communications in one unified architecture. No need to buy individual switches and controllers for each type of network. And the entire infrastructure can be managed through a single web interface, and powered over the network wiring with 802.3af Power over Ethernet.

Simplifying Infrastructure Complexity
3Com makes it possible for government agencies to add infrastructure equipment to their existing networks without having to pay premium prices or incur the higher costs of complex management and support. For example, 3Com’s innovative, eXpandable Resilient Networking (XRN®)
switching technology links multiple LAN switches and manages them as a single fabric, offering pay-as-you-grow scalability and lowering administrative overhead.

Multiple Networks, One Infrastructure
Some government agencies must keep multiple networks separate for security or other reasons. For instance, a military organization may have three data networks and application sets—unclassified, restricted and top secret—with different user authorizations needed for each. 3Com provides reasonably priced, high-capacity network solutions that preserve security and ensure resilience, but still allow users to work from any workstation—with everything running on a single, cost-effective infrastructure.

Sharing Inter-Agency Resources
Because 3Com solutions are designed on open-standards architectures, they fit smoothly into inter-agency communications schemes. This is particularly important in today’s government environments, where agencies need access to data located in “silos” that my lie across organizational boundaries.