Network World Test Shows VoIP Call Quality Can Improve With SSL VPN

VoIP and SSL VPN can coexist very happily, concluded a recent Network World Clear Choice Test, and, in some cases, provide an even better experience than VoIP without SSL VPN. The testing showed that a VoIP call made over SSL VPN on a typical broadband Internet connection is of higher quality than an unencrypted call. In high-bandwidth, low-latency environments, there is virtually no difference in quality between an unencrypted VoIP call and the same over an SSL VPN.

We had predicted that the quality of a call over an SSL VPN could not be better than over a clean wire… but we were astonished with the results that showed many SSL VPNs improved the quality of VoIP calls," said Joel Snyder, senior partner at Opus One and a member of the Network World Lab Alliance, who ran the tests. "In every case, adding an SSL VPN to a VoIP call over a good broadband network improved call quality.

This test affirms what Aventail has been saying for years -- that VoIP would become a critical application for remote access, and SSL VPNs would become the platform for providing secure, VoIP communication from anywhere on any device," said Evan Kaplan, president and CEO, Aventail. "With the advancements in SSL VPN technology that we are delivering, there is no reason for enterprises to stay with IPSec for all remote access.

Aventail was one of 10 SSL VPN products examined by Network World for the VoIP testing. Aventail's secure, remote access platform provides full support for VoIP applications with its Smart Tunneling architecture. Aventail Smart Tunneling enables a full IP network tunnel to be created over SSL, providing a Layer 3 connection with the policy control of Layers 4 to 7. Smart Tunneling was designed specifically for complex applications like VoIP.