March 5, 2007
COMMENTARY: Voice choice | VoIP services may seem sexy, but a communications pro offers a few cautionary tips
By Jon Henderson, Director
Mid-Maine Communications, Bangor
0The growing popularity of low-cost consumer "voice-over-Internet protocol," or VoIP, services has created a high level of awareness about alternative phone services delivered over the Internet or an IP infrastructure. VoIP represents a large segment of communications technology under development, and some IP solutions represent a smart technology strategy for your business.
Others, though, are little more than cheap commodities dressed up like sexy-sounding alternatives, and they're far from the viable communications solutions that your business needs. In short: buyer beware.
Cable operators, ISP's and phone companies now offer consumers access to converged networks that carry data, voice and video over the same line. Because of the efficiencies gained by providers using your Internet connection to deliver telephone service, calling plans are often available for a low fixed price.
While there are cost savings that can result from these consumer-grade commodity services, a "convergence" strategy for delivering voice services over the raw Internet is still a risky bet for businesses. The variable conditions that exist in public access networks ˆ the result of storms, power loss, network congestion and other hazards ˆ and that cause your favorite website to display slowly can also wreak havoc with a telephone call.
So what about a provider who promises a "private" connection over a converged network? Unlike voice delivered over an Internet connection, this service rides a data network that is much less susceptible to congestion and service degradation because of the provider's ability to control the different types of data traffic across their private infrastructure.
However, in choosing this delivery model for your organization's voice communications, you are still jeopardizing the quality of your telephone service. Too many moving parts can lead to an overbuilt network that becomes difficult to administer ˆ especially for a service provider with thousands of customers. The result can be a frustrating deluge of service problems with no clear path to resolution, all the result of a network that is too complex for its own good.
While deployment of telephone services over the Internet and across converged networks is available, the technology is still evolving. Today, businesses are better served with a quality traditional telephone service, such as POTS, Centrex, or PRI, that is based on a switching infrastructure designed solely for voice. If you want to dabble in more of the commodity-based, lower-quality services, do it over non-critical lines that will not impact your vital customer voice communications.
What works and why
While VoIP is not quite ready for prime time as a business-class solution, it does have a place in a business communications environment.
Two areas where I would recommend considering VoIP as a primary deployment strategy is in an IP-enabled telephone system, and as a transport mechanism for voice between multiple office locations. With the right network infrastructure in place, a business can begin realizing the benefits of VoIP in a controlled environment without concern for degrading the quality of customer communications.
That controlled network environment features something called "quality of service", or QoS. In a private, converged network that includes voice, data, video and more, QoS must be deployed or call quality will suffer. For example, an employee emailing photos to her cousin in Calais is competing for bandwidth with someone who's making a phone call on the same network; without QoS, the sound of the phone call will likely be degraded. QoS ensures that the phone call quality will remain high, which is why end-to-end QoS is a must when deploying a VoIP solution.
Today's IP-enabled telephone systems are designed to communicate across the same network infrastructure ˆ the "local area network," or LAN ˆ as your computer, assuming that network infrastructure has sufficient QoS controls in place. This converged strategy reduces the overhead in maintaining separate voice and data networks and simplifies new network construction, since it utilizes a single cable run as opposed to two. Unified messaging, application development and employee productivity are but a few of the benefits your local interconnect company will be happy to discuss.
If your business has remote offices across the state, the need to transmit voice and data between those offices is critical. Private networks used for linking remote offices are referred to as a "wide area network," or WAN. Using IP for remote site connectivity offers businesses a WAN solution that integrates seamlessly into an internal VoIP deployment strategy. Again, the critical component of deploying an IP-based WAN to handle your organization's voice is to make sure you have the ability to control the quality of your telephone conversations so that customer experiences are not degraded by inappropriate technology choices.
The bottom line is that VoIP, as a foundation for an internal office communication system, deserves strong consideration for your business. VoIP is here to stay, and the technology will continue to evolve, as will the options for your business. You can realize the benefits of VoIP today in your controlled network as well as over the WAN if the proper QoS is available. Look to converged network services or pure voice over the Internet only for non-critical telephone lines, so as to not negatively impact customers with poor-quality voice services.
0The growing popularity of low-cost consumer "voice-over-Internet protocol," or VoIP, services has created a high level of awareness about alternative phone services delivered over the Internet or an IP infrastructure. VoIP represents a large segment of communications technology under development, and some IP solutions represent a smart technology strategy for your business.
Others, though, are little more than cheap commodities dressed up like sexy-sounding alternatives, and they're far from the viable communications solutions that your business needs. In short: buyer beware.
Cable operators, ISP's and phone companies now offer consumers access to converged networks that carry data, voice and video over the same line. Because of the efficiencies gained by providers using your Internet connection to deliver telephone service, calling plans are often available for a low fixed price.
While there are cost savings that can result from these consumer-grade commodity services, a "convergence" strategy for delivering voice services over the raw Internet is still a risky bet for businesses. The variable conditions that exist in public access networks ˆ the result of storms, power loss, network congestion and other hazards ˆ and that cause your favorite website to display slowly can also wreak havoc with a telephone call.
So what about a provider who promises a "private" connection over a converged network? Unlike voice delivered over an Internet connection, this service rides a data network that is much less susceptible to congestion and service degradation because of the provider's ability to control the different types of data traffic across their private infrastructure.
However, in choosing this delivery model for your organization's voice communications, you are still jeopardizing the quality of your telephone service. Too many moving parts can lead to an overbuilt network that becomes difficult to administer ˆ especially for a service provider with thousands of customers. The result can be a frustrating deluge of service problems with no clear path to resolution, all the result of a network that is too complex for its own good.
While deployment of telephone services over the Internet and across converged networks is available, the technology is still evolving. Today, businesses are better served with a quality traditional telephone service, such as POTS, Centrex, or PRI, that is based on a switching infrastructure designed solely for voice. If you want to dabble in more of the commodity-based, lower-quality services, do it over non-critical lines that will not impact your vital customer voice communications.
What works and why
While VoIP is not quite ready for prime time as a business-class solution, it does have a place in a business communications environment.
Two areas where I would recommend considering VoIP as a primary deployment strategy is in an IP-enabled telephone system, and as a transport mechanism for voice between multiple office locations. With the right network infrastructure in place, a business can begin realizing the benefits of VoIP in a controlled environment without concern for degrading the quality of customer communications.
That controlled network environment features something called "quality of service", or QoS. In a private, converged network that includes voice, data, video and more, QoS must be deployed or call quality will suffer. For example, an employee emailing photos to her cousin in Calais is competing for bandwidth with someone who's making a phone call on the same network; without QoS, the sound of the phone call will likely be degraded. QoS ensures that the phone call quality will remain high, which is why end-to-end QoS is a must when deploying a VoIP solution.
Today's IP-enabled telephone systems are designed to communicate across the same network infrastructure ˆ the "local area network," or LAN ˆ as your computer, assuming that network infrastructure has sufficient QoS controls in place. This converged strategy reduces the overhead in maintaining separate voice and data networks and simplifies new network construction, since it utilizes a single cable run as opposed to two. Unified messaging, application development and employee productivity are but a few of the benefits your local interconnect company will be happy to discuss.
If your business has remote offices across the state, the need to transmit voice and data between those offices is critical. Private networks used for linking remote offices are referred to as a "wide area network," or WAN. Using IP for remote site connectivity offers businesses a WAN solution that integrates seamlessly into an internal VoIP deployment strategy. Again, the critical component of deploying an IP-based WAN to handle your organization's voice is to make sure you have the ability to control the quality of your telephone conversations so that customer experiences are not degraded by inappropriate technology choices.
The bottom line is that VoIP, as a foundation for an internal office communication system, deserves strong consideration for your business. VoIP is here to stay, and the technology will continue to evolve, as will the options for your business. You can realize the benefits of VoIP today in your controlled network as well as over the WAN if the proper QoS is available. Look to converged network services or pure voice over the Internet only for non-critical telephone lines, so as to not negatively impact customers with poor-quality voice services.
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