Making IP Telephony an Easy Call

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.

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.

When Should You Make the Call?

The time to make the call for IP telephony is now. IP telephony technology is proven. Tens of thousands of companies, including many Fortune 100 companies, have successfully deployed IP telephony throughout all or part of their organization.

There are many published IP telephony success stories including Lehman Brothers, who credit IP telephony technology in helping their organization recover phone communications within days after their Wall Street offices were destroyed on 9/11, and Eastman Kodak, who credits IP telephony with helping them cut their international telecom bill five-fold.

With Gartner predicting 51 percent of all U.S. premise switching equipment lines turning to IP telephony by 2007, there is a lot of momentum for moving to IPT. Analyst firm IDC concurs and projects the IP telephony market will grow 45 percent annually to reach a revenue base of $15.1 billion by the year 2007. That's a pretty steep growth path.

But what should you consider when making a decision to implement IP telephony? In addition to cost, identify how the technology can support your business.

* Could your workforce take advantage of the new and advance features of IP telephony such as unified messaging?

* Do you have a mobile work force or telecommuters who need to stay connected?

* Do you have a customer support team that could benefit from having multiple communication vehicles such as voice and Web chat as well as customer and product information available at their fingertips?

* Could you benefit from a distributed call center model?

* Does your company have high long distance bills or high conferencing bills that could be reduced with toll bypass?

* Are you interested in reducing operational costs by converging your voice and data infrastructure support?

* Are you planning to open or move to a new facility? If so, installing one infrastructure can save considerable money.

Matching the technology to business objectives in conjunction with the TCO analysis will help you decide the timing of your move.

So once you've made the decision to move to convergence, how can you realize the benefits of IP telephony? The key is choosing the right solution and investing in support.

IP-enabled PBX vs. pure IP PBX

Organizations can IP-enable an existing PBX system by "bolting on" an IP trunk card with an IP connection. This approach enables the organization to send long distance calls across its WAN infrastructure, bypassing the PSTN toll. Local calls and all call processing are still handled through the legacy system. Although there are some toll-bypass cost savings, an IP-enabled solution does not enable the majority of the business benefits discussed above such as centralized and common phone/voice mail functionality, mobility and the ability to create virtual, seamless call centers across geographies. In addition, your organization must still support two separate infrastructures - the voice infrastructure and the data infrastructure.

A pure IP telephony system enables your business to take advantage of the benefits listed above as well as the cost savings of toll bypass.

Preparing for Convergence

Sending converged traffic over an infrastructure that was not properly prepared for voice is a common mistake made by companies without experience in converged networking. Most data infrastructures are not prepared to handle voice traffic. Conducting a network audit to determine network readiness is strongly recommended. An audit should include examining network device status to ensure that the devices can be configured for managing quality of service (QoS), assessing bandwidth requirements to ensure that the network can handle the traffic flow without impacting voice quality, and assessing network security to prevent a security breach of the data infrastructure that carries both voice and data traffic.

Securing converged networks is a hot topic in the IP telephony world today. The legacy telephony environment is inherently more secure than an IP telephony environment because it is a closed architecture. A closed architecture is not an attractive target for hackers or prone to Web-propagated attacks.

IP telephony solutions are more vulnerable because they are part of the data network. Viruses, worms and other denial of service attacks that impact your data network can impact your ability to make phone calls as well if you are not properly protected. Fortunately, securing a converged network does not require different technology or expertise than securing a standalone data network; it requires diligence.

It is important to treat security as a process, not as a technology. Installing firewalls or intrusion detection devices is only beneficial if they are monitored and managed around the clock. According to Computer security Institute, 33 percent of companies who are attacked already have a firewall installed. Diligent patch management is also key. Patches are released on a monthly, sometimes weekly, basis and must be evaluated and applied to ensure security. Most IP telephony equipment vendors have security guidelines that will help you maintain a secure environment.

During the planning, design arid implementation stage it is a good idea to engage a consultant, reseller or integrator to work in partnership with you. Although there are many tools available to step you through the process, an expert who has actually designed and implemented converged solutions can save you time, money and heartache in the end.

Flipping the Switch

One of the most overlooked aspects of moving to convergence is planning for the ongoing support. META Group recently commented on this issue stating: "Users planning IP telephony deployments must plan and deploy management concurrently with the actual planning and deployment of the telephony technology itself... management as an afterthought is unacceptable."

Whether you manage convergence yourself, or outsource the support, focus on 24 x 365 monitoring and remote management.

Constant Monitoring

Around-the-clock monitoring of all of the security devices, routers, switches, and voice gateways as well as the IP PBX and voice mail systems is critical for proactive problem resolution and support. Routers and switches are now your "switching matrix" and are key to good quality of service. Proactively monitoring for issues such as queue depth and dropped packets can help prevent voice quality problems.

Consistent monitoring is important to identify the impact of network atrophy. As traffic flow changes, congestion can occur which can result in dropped packets and other voice-impacting problems.

Remote problem identification, isolation and resolution are also critical. In the PBX world, when a problem occurred troubleshooting was easier and usually isolated to the site where the issue occurred. One of the strongest benefits of IP telephony is centralized call processing and centralized voice mail. This centralization can also make troubleshooting across a multi-site network very challenging. Because the call traverses a network the root cause of a problem can be located at the site where the call originated, at the site where the call was terminated, at the site where the call was processed or at any point in between. Understanding how to troubleshoot and diagnose IP telephony issues remotely allows your business to resolve problems quickly and cost effectively.

Many companies which lack internal convergence expertise are turning to managed service providers to provide ongoing support and gain immediate benefit from their new IP telephony solution. If you decide to outsource the management of your IP telephony solution, look for a company with a proven history and high customer satisfaction ratings. Also, understand how they deliver their service. Are they reactive waiting for you to call them when a problem occurs, or proactive - actively monitoring your system for issues. Do they rely on truck rolls to deliver service or can they identify, diagnose and fix issues remotely? Companies that rely on truck rolls to isolate and resolve issues can take four hours or more to put a resource on site. Companies with remote management expertise often have the problem resolved in well under four hours. Look for a vendor with a proven ability to completely isolate and resolve issues remotely without relying on trucks on site.

IP telephony offers tremendous business benefits and work flexibility. However you proceed on the path to IP telephony, remember the guiding principle that dial tone is virtually a birthright. Proper planning and support will ensure that users will experience the same reliability, quality and dependability they have come to expect every time they pick up the phone.

Renaye Thornborrow

Renaye Thornborrow is a senior product marketing manager for NetSolve Inc. (www.netsolve.com), a global provider of remote IT infrastructure management services with more than four years of providing management for IP telephony systems.

Copyright Publications & Communications, Inc. Aug 2004
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