3Com® NBX® Release 6.0 System Software
3Com® is excited to announce Release 6.0 of system software. With this flexible new platform, businesses are able to better merge applications, such as IP Messaging and IP Conferencing, with new business processes to drive productivity gains, customer service improvements and increased collaboration. The new NBX 6.0 release enables customers to interoperate their NBX systems with applications, end-points, gateways and next-generation public telephone network connectivity using the emerging standard of SIP. 3Com has close to a decade of experience developing and delivering IP telephony solutions to business customers, schools, governments, retailers and healthcare institutions. As one of the industry's first pure IP-PBX for small businesses and medium enterprises, the 3Com NBX IP Telephony platform continues to evolve to meet the changing needs of customers and market demands.

To help customers take better control of global communications systems and SIP-enabled and 802.11-enabled devices, NBX Release 6.0, the newest version of NBX software and hardware components, will provide the following technical features to make installation and maintenance of IP telephony systems easier, more customized and more efficient for IT managers and non-technical managers who are involved with managing an organization's communications systems and processes:

• Support for SIP. As a meaningful standard, SIP is expected to dominate telephony applications and become the leading signaling protocol for telephony. The NBX Release 6.0 includes support for SIP connectivity to applications, SIP endpoints - such as IP phones - as well as SIP trunking to connect businesses service providers that offer this service. SIP support will also allow the NBX to interoperate with the award-winning 3Com VCX IP telephony solution.
  
  
• New NBX V3000 BRI platform. A new NBX platform with integrated BRI-ST lowers the cost of deployment and eases installation in Europe, Middle East, Latin America and Asia, where BRI is a dominant digital trunking standard.
  
  
• New NBX V3001R platform. This high availability platform features redundant power supplies and mirrored disk drives, enabling customers with critical telecom functions to stay operational.
  
  
• Support of 802.11 wireless (Wi-Fi). Integration of 802.11-based wireless applications on the NBX platform with Wi-Fi phones can be accomplished using the SIP protocol.
  
  
• Enhanced ACD. New routing options, real-time supervisor reporting capabilities and call monitoring options are available as integral parts of the platform. No additional hardware is required.
  
  
• Remote monitoring. Delivery of new remote monitoring and serviceability tools for NBX customers and channel partners to maximize the investment in next-generation IP applications.
  
  
• Compliance with Section 508 for Disabled Users; The NBX Release 6.0 includes a user interface that provides assistance for sight, hearing and motor-impaired users, in compliance with the United States Rehabilitation Act, Section 508.
  
  

The NBX IP telephony platform has been installed in more than 28,000 small-and-medium enterprises in 62 countries. First introduced in 1998 and distinguished as a leader in pure IP telephony, the 3Com NBX platform continues to offer ease of use and management as well as scalability that is best in the industry for small to medium sized businesses. NBX offers a suite of integrated applications, such as automated attendant/voicemail, voicemail-email integration and Automatic Call Distribution (ACD), a newly redesigned NetSet™ browser-based administration, ease of installation and management for small and medium-sized businesses to reap the benefits of IP telephony: higher productivity, improved collaboration, greater mobility, business-shaping flexibility and lower costs.

New R6.0 Features

V3001R — The 3Com V3001R (3C10602A) is the new high-end NBX platform. The V3001R features a
standard redundant power supply, an optional disk mirroring system, 512 MB of memory, and more
processing power than any previous NBX system.

V3000 BRI-ST — The 3Com V3000 BRI-ST (3C10601A) extends the NBX family by providing ISDN BRI telephony connectivity to small organizations while lowering the cost and complexity of an initial deployment by offering integrated call management, voice mail, and central office connectivity in one self- contained platform. The system features 4 ports / 8 channels of BRI connectivity (2 ports are enabled by default with the additional 2 ports/4 channels requiring a license – 3C10166) and 2 analog (FXS) ports. An optional memory upgrade enables the V3000 BRI-ST to support up to 1500 devices and is also required if the system will be used in SIP (Session Initiation Protocol) mode.

NBX BRI-ST Card — The NBX ISDN BRI-ST (Basic Rate Interface) Digital Line Card (3C10164D-ST) is a refreshed version of the NBX BRI card. It has 4 ports / 8 channels of connectivity for ETSI compliant central office connectivity. The new card supports all of the audio compression codecs available on the NBX system, including G.729. The card also supports DHCP option 184.

3Com 3108 Wireless Telephone — The 3Com 3108 Wireless Telephone is a high-quality, color-display, high-security, wireless (802.11d), clamshell-type VoIP telephone. The 3108 Wireless Telephone uses SIP as the control protocol. The 3108 operates with an NBX system that is running in SIP mode.

SIP Mode Operations — An NBX system running R6.0 can operate using the NBX control protocols (3Com call control mode) or it can operate in SIP mode. In SIP mode, 3Com devices such as telephones and line cards, communicate with the NCP using 3Com call control mode and SIP devices, such as the 3Com 3108 Wireless Telephone, generic SIP phones, and SIP gateways and servers, communicate using IETF RFC 3261 (SIP: Session Initiation Protocol). (The NBX system must have the maximum memory configuration. SIP is not supported on NBX 100.)

Updated NBX NetSet Utility ¯ The user and administrator portals of the NBX NetSet utility have been redesigned for NBX R6.0. Tasks have been reorganized and simplified to provide easier navigation and easier access to information. The user portal interface has been localized. Users can view their personal settings in an interface that has been localized into Mexican Spanish, Italian, or Brazilian Portuguese. The user portal interface complies with the accessibility guidelines of Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, as amended by the Workforce Investment Act of 1998.

Automatic Call Distribution (ACD) Enhancements ¯ NBX R6.0 extends the NBX ACD feature. R6.0 includes these ACD enhancements:

• Least call count call distribution — The agent who has handled the fewest calls gets the next call.
• Calling groups call distribution — A single call rings on all phones of the ACD Group.
• Multiple group membership — An agent with multiple skills can be part of multiple ACD groups and receive a uniform number of calls.
• ACD shifts — You can break down calling statistics into meaningful chunks.
• Announcements — NBX 6.0 supports three new ACD announcements: Estimated Wait Time, In- queue Exit, and Group Closed announcements.
• Wrap-up time — An agent can perform administrative tasks after a call.
• Streaming data for external application integration — ACD data can be streamed over a TCP socket.
• ACD Desktop Statistics — This new Windows client application allows supervisors to monitor ACD activity in real time.

License Backup Enhancement — A system’s license keys are now automatically included in a system configuration backup, eliminating the need to manage this step independently.

SNMP — NBX R6.0 supports the Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMPv1, SNMPv2c, and SNMPv3) for remote fault notification and performance monitoring.

Supervisory Monitoring — NBX R6.0 includes these Supervisory Monitoring enhancements:

• Monitoring of all types of calls — Incoming, outgoing, and non-ACD calls can be monitored.
• Simplified monitoring — New “domains” define logical groupings. A Privacy List lets you specify users, Hunt groups, ACDs, or TAPI Route Points that cannot be monitored.
• Call privacy — If the NBX Administrator assigns a user to a CoS group that allows Call Privacy, the user can prevent a current call from being monitored.
• Enhanced security — The NBX admin log is updated whenever the NBX administrator enables or disables supervisory monitoring system-wide, when a domain is added, modified, or deleted, or when someone attempts to view domain reports or monitor another user using the wrong password.

WhisperPage — The WhisperPage feature allows you to dial an NBX extension that is involved in a conversation with another person and speak to the extension owner without the other party on the call being able to hear you.

Camp On with Call Transfer — A user can queue a transferred call to a destination extension that is already in use.

Camp On Direct — You can initiate Camp On to directly queue a call on to a destination extension that is in use or busy.

Automatic Callback — A user can request a call back from a destination extension that is in use or unanswered.

Syslog Support — The Syslog protocol provides a transport mechanism that allows a device to send event notification messages across an IP network to a server that acts as an event message collector.

New File System — The new file system is more robust in the event of an unexpected system shutdown, more versatile, and easily upgradeable to support future improvements. New V3000 Analog, V3000 BRI- ST, and V3001R systems that ship from the factory with R6.0 or higher run the new file system. NBX systems running a system software version earlier than R6.0 continue to use the older file system after upgrading to R6.0. A new field on the NBX NetSet System Settings page indicates the file system version that is in use.

Periodic Timestamp on Console (HyperTerminal) — The PTOC feature sends a timestamp to the NBX system console port at an interval you set. If the system experiences a problem, the timestamp messages appear in any data capture taken from the console port, providing an approximate time when the problem occurred.

Simple Network Time Protocol (SNTP) — SNTP provides an automated method of synchronizing the time and date of an NBX system with a central network time server.

Wideband Audio — Wideband audio extends the frequency range of call audio for internal and VTL calls, which results in a more natural and intelligible conversation. Wideband audio allows users in digital end- to-end networks to experience speech quality that approaches face-to-face communication. Wideband audio is available for internal, VTL, and SIP calls on the 3102B Business Telephone, the 3103 Manager’s Telephone, and the 3101B Basic Telephones.

Codec Control — The NBX NetSet utility gives you increased control on how you manage the balance between voice quality and bandwidth by allowing you to prioritize how a connection chooses one of the codecs available in the NBX system.

North America Daylight Saving Time Enhancements — In 2007, Daylight Saving Time will be observed in the US from the second Sunday in March to the first Sunday in November. The NBX software will handle the new DST time changes and adds four new Canadian and three new Mexican time zones.

CSV File Import — Allows the NBX administrator to import and export select fields of user and device data.

Accessibility — NBX R6.0 adheres to the Section 508 guidelines by implementing these features:

• Support for calls between TTY users when using commonly used standard TTY signaling protocols
• TTY prompt support so that TTY users can interact with the voice mail and auto attendant applications directly
• Large Fonts on telephone display panels
• Accessibility features in the NBX NetSet utility and user documentation

Unified Visibility Across Multiple NBX Systems for Desktop Call Assistant and Complement Attendant Software — Users can download directory information from multiple NBX systems and dial extensions on any of these systems.

Paging Zones — The number of Paging Zones has increased from 9 to 16.

Application Support in NBX R6.0 (these applications are optional in NBX R6.0) :

• NBX Complement Attendant Software R6.0
• NBX Multisite Backup R6.0
• NBX ConneXtions Gateway R4.0.1
• NBX pcXset Soft Telephone R6.0.2
• NBX Media Driver R6.0.8
• 3Com IP Messaging Module R7.1
• 3Com IP Conferencing Module R7.1
• NBX TAPI Service Provider R6.0.3
• ACD Desktop Statistics R6.0
• NBX Desktop Call Assistant R6.0.1
• NBX Call Reports R6.0.5
• NBX Dial Plan Editor R6.0.1
• 3Com Telephone Local Configuration Application V1.4.5

Important Notes:

TAPI Upgrade - If you upgrade your NBX system to NBX R6.0, and you use the NBX TAPI Service Provider, you MUST also upgrade your TAPI Service Provider (NBXTSP) to the latest version.

License Note - NBX R6.0 is a major release of system software and requires a chargeable license key to enable it. This license key is pre-installed on new systems at no charge. If you are upgrading the software of an existing system, you must purchase and enter an NBX 6.0 license key into the NBX NetSet™ utility to fully enable the R6.0 software. (3C10503 is the SKU required.) The system allows you to install the R6.0 license key prior to or after you install the R6.0 software on the system. If you are running any previous release of NBX system software, you need purchase only the R6.0 license to upgrade. For complete upgrade instructions, see the NBX System Software Upgrade Instructions available on the NBX Resource Pack DVD.

Internet Explorer 7.0 - NBX R6.0 has not yet been tested with Microsoft Internet Explorer 7.0.