Snom 370 supports VPN
For some reason (most likely me being on holiday) I missed the announcement of Snom’s latest IP Phone, the 370. While I do not particularly like Snom phones, more precisely the way the large LCD is used and the myriad of buttons, they certainly are quality phones and offer features few phones do. The latest Snom, just raised the bar for the competition by adding a VPN layer into the phone.
This might not sound very impressive at first, after all most quality VoIP phones these days provide support for SRTP or SIPS thus avoiding the need to add an additional VPN layer while maintaining industry standard security features. That’s true, but unfortunately currently few PBX’s provide support for these protocols, often leaving VPN as the only valid option.
In most cases, this dooms remote workers to using a softphone on their laptop which already has a VPN client to connect to the company’s network. This may be fine when you’re on the road, but using a softphone and earset all the time can be tiresome and many will prefer a regular handset. This leaves a VPN router as the only valid option, however few companies will allow it because this means all your networked computers, including your kid’s virus laden game machine, will have access to the company network. Not very desirable.
“Most IT professionals are more familiar with VPN infrastructure, making it easier for them to configure and deploy the 370 on their networks. We’re finding our customers are thrilled to be able to leverage existing VPN infrastructure and technical know-how.” said Michael Knieling, CFO and executive vice president of marketing and sales for Snom. This certainly is interesting and Snom might have a hit on their hands with this one. The press release doesn’t state which VPN protocols are supported and their website is having some problems right now. I’m guessing PPTP or IPSec or preferably both.
