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Making IP Telephony an Easy Call

Enterprise Networks & Servers, Aug 2004 by Thornborrow, Renaye

There's no doubt about it; voice is still the killer application for business and dial tone is a virtual birthright that is not to be trifled with. But in recent years it has been trifled with in order to bring new communication capabilities to the marketplace. Voice traffic that was traditionally carried over the dedicated circuit-switched connections of the public switched telephone network (PSTN) is now joining data traffic on IP data networks in a process called convergence. Also referred to as IP telephony, convergence is revolutionizing telecommunications.

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IP telephony enables significant business benefits including substantial cost savings and increased employee productivity. This article will outline many of the business benefits of IP telephony as well as critical issues to consider once you've made the convergence call.

The promise of costs-savings attracts many companies to IP telephony. Responses from large companies surveyed by Nemertes, an industry analyst firm specializing in IP communications, indicated that IP telephony systems were about 22 percent less expensive to operate than traditional circuit-switched networks.

Cost savings come from many different sources. Perhaps the best known savings is toll bypass. Toll bypass involves sending "long distance" traffic over the data network instead of the traditional PSTN network, avoiding long distance charges. For companies making a significant number of intracompany long distance calls, IP telephony can greatly decrease long distance fees.

Administration costs are also reduced. Before adopting convergence, most companies had different organizations supporting their voice infrastructure and their data infrastructure. When voice and data are converged, the support staff can be converged to support one infrastructure, reducing the number of people needed to support communications.

The cost of MACs (Moves, Adds and Changes) are also significantly less because they are made via software and don't require a "truck roll."

Cost reduction is just one reason many businesses have started to explore IP telephony. Increased employee productivity is another. Centralized telephony services, unified messaging, mobility and IP call centers are all enhancing employee productivity.

Many companies have very disparate voice solutions such as PBXs, Centrex solutions and Key Systems across their different sites. In addition to variant call processing solutions, other applications such as voice mail, conferencing and call centers may vary as well. IP telephony enables companies to centralize call processing, voice mail and other voice applications across their entire organization - delivering the same phone and application functionality to all employees regardless of their geographic location.

IP telephony also enables new types of communication and breaks the barriers of traditional POTS (Plain Old Telephone Service) thinking. For example, convergence enables unified messaging which allows your employees to access all of their voice mail, e-mail and faxes online or from their phone. You can save a phone call on your computer or forward a phone call, in an e-mail, to another person. If you don't have access to your computer, you can hear your e-mail via your phone. Unified communications means increased employee productivity and increased speed of communications, any time, anywhere.

Mobility is another driver that is pushing employee productivity and market adoption of IP telephony. IP telephony enables you to move your phone from one office to another simply by plugging it into a new Ethernet port at the new location. If you are working remotely, such as in an airport or from home, connecting to your corporate network will enable you to receive calls on your office extension as though you were sitting at your desk. With a wireless IP phone you can carry your desk extension with you anywhere within your facility. Soon wireless IP phones with embedded cellular capability will enable you to have one work number inside and outside of the office thus eliminating the need for a separate pager number, cell phone number and desk number.

With IP Call Centers, agents are no longer bound to the same room to answer phone calls. Agents can work in multiple locations around the world, including their home, and be linked together seamlessly. Employees can use either IP telephony handsets or soft phones - software applications running on their desktop that provide telephony functionality. Master Financial's call center has no physical phones; all 350 employees use soft phones to communicate with customers, saving the company tens of thousands of dollars on handset costs.

Because of the business benefits listed above, many companies are moving to IP telephony. But, when should you jump on the IP telephony bandwagon and what is the best path to take? Should you IP-enable your current PBX or move to a pure IP solution? How should you support the solution once it is up and running? The next few paragraphs provide a high-level look at the difference between IP-enabled and pure IP telephony solutions, things to consider when moving to IP telephony and options for managing the solution to ensure the dial tone birthright.

Technology Industry

Making IP Telephony an Easy Call

Enterprise Networks & Servers, Aug 2004 by Thornborrow, Renaye

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