SLASH YOUR BILLS IN HALF
It is imperative that senior business managers understand the basics of how and why IP Telephony and VoIP will benefit their organisations. Hence we have outlined our interpretation in a non-technical manner and either a TeleBiz representative or your preferred IT consultant/manager can fill you in on the finer details.
Imagine you are a frequent regional, interstate or international traveller with a notebook computer and can readily access the internet — this could be via a WiFi connection at fast food outlets, hooking up at an internet café, or connecting to broadband at a friend’s home. Isn’t it amazing that you can access the internet to send or receive email messages for a small fee, normally amounting to several cents?
Now take a step backwards and consider how on earth someone can send you an email from one side of the world to you specifically. The answer is that every email address has what we call an IP address, similar to an electronic serial number (IMEI number) on a mobile phone. And instead of sending emails over a traditional telephone line with traditional billing, your messages are sent in packet sized data over the internet to your IP address.
An IP telephone is a telephone with an IP address which means calls can be sent and received over the internet or via your organisation’s VPN (Virtual Private Network), LAN (Local Area Network) or WAN (Wide Area Network).
For example, a customer operates a business headquartered in Sydney with an IP PABX (IP telephone system). The owners daughter is studying in London and she has an IP phone connected via an IP address to her dad’s PABX in his Sydney office and consequently the two can talk all day for just a few cents, if that. This same business owner has an associate in South Africa with another IP telephone connected to the PABX in Sydney and again they can chat all day if they wish to, for next to no cost.
IP Telephony/VoIP pricing is excellent however there are many other advantages. These include:
- Centralised reception e.g. for call centres such as emergency services and hotel reservations
- Centralised call accounting
- Centralised IT&T system management
- Compatibility with CTI (Computer Telephony Integration) software
- Converging voice with videoconferencing and other data simultaneously in rapid transfer mode
- Peace of mind in knowing that your telecommunications systems are future proof
- Unified messaging — the ability to provide messages to you wherever you are
- Utilising an IT network to transmit voice reduces establishment costs and ongoing maintenance
IP Telephony case study using voice over existing data cabling
Several years ago a school installed data cabling into every room for their computer network and two years later decided to upgrade the telephone system so that each classroom has a handset extension. Rather than the school spend potentially thousands of dollars installing separate telephone extension cabling, the answer was to install IP extension handsets and transmit calls by sharing the existing data cabling in place for the computers. The outcome was the school saved big $$$, upgraded to a future proof platform which is easier to manage and significantly less expensive to maintain. than a traditional telephone system.
The negatives of IP/VoIP
- Your organisation must have a reliable IT network. For example, if your internet connection or computers fail, so may your IP/VoIP! This is why IP/VoIP was initially taken up by large companies who already had the resources (both HR and CAPEX) to maintain reliable IT platforms. Fortunately, we are witnessing much more reliabile IT platforms for SME/SMB organisations so the uptake of IP/VoIP solutions in this market sector is phenomenal. It is worth noting that many astute organisations utilise a combination of traditional voice carriage such as PSTN or ISDN with IP/VoIP — now that’s covering your bases!
- Major traditional Telco carriers have done their best to denigrate IP/VoIP because it was eroding their traditional revenue streams. However, consumers are not stupid and it is interesting to note the big telcos rush to ramp up their internet (broadband) capabilities because it is on this platform that they can sell their future IP/VoIP solutions.
- There are different modes of transmitting voice and data e.g. Mobile phones purchased in Japan do not work in Australia (a bit like each country having different width railway tracks). Fortunately IP/VoIP carriers are settling on commom transmission platforms and one example is "SIP". Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) is a signalling protocol, widely used for VoIP transmission.
- It is human nature for many people to resist change, no matter how good a new product or service is!
The future of IP/VoIP
- Governments recognise the importance and added value of IP/VoIP to organisations and the community at large. Therefore, we can expect ongoing nationwide convergence to these new services ASAP.
- Ultimately mobile phones will convert to IP Telephony and again, call costs should spiral downward.
- Competition in the VoIP space benefits customers. Already there are over 200 VoIP carriage companies operating in Australia. This leads to competitive pricing but be wary that your future VoIP carrier doesn’t go bust and leave you with no “dial tone”.
Our summary of IP/VoIP
IP Telephony and VoIP is cheaper, seemingly more efficient and new PABXs are designed to accomodate IP/VoIP. As at mid 2007, 75% of America’s Fortune 500 companies utilised IP/VoIP. At TeleBiz, we predict all organisations will migrate across to IP Telephony/VoIP at some point in time. At TeleBiz, our phone bill was reduced by 40% after installing VoIP lines in addition to our traditional PSTN/ISDN voice lines. Understandably, TeleBiz is keen to migrate all of its PABX customers across to IP Telephony and VoIP with minimal disruption.
I WANT CHEAP CALLS
