It is imperative that all 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. In due course, TeleBiz personnel 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 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.
An IP telephone is a telephone with an IP address which means calls can be sent and received over the public 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 in Sydney. His daughter is studying in London and she has an IP phone connected via an IP address to her dad’s PABX in Sydney and they can talk all day for 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 or call Centre
- 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
A school has data cabling into every room for their computer network and then decides to install a telephone system so that each classroom has a handset extension. The school can either spend thousands of dollars installing separate telephone cabling, or install cheaper IP handsets using the existing data cabling. The choice is obvious, notwithstanding an IP telephone system is future proof, better managed 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 servers fail, so may your IP/VoIP! This is why IP/VoIP is predominantly in use by large companies who have the resources (both HR and CAPEX) to maintain reliable IT platforms. Fortunately, we will see more reliable IT platforms emerging for SME/SMB organisations over time and it is worth noting that many astute organisations utilise a combination of traditional PBX and IP/VoIP — now that’s covering your bases!
- Major telcos are currently disparaging IP/VoIP because it is eroding their traditional revenue streams. Thus it is their best interests to promote scaremongering campaigns. However times are changing 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.
- How do you know the other parties you wish to contact are VoIP capable with the desirable quality of service? This is the six million dollar question! The race is on internationally to ensure compatible platforms are put in place (a bit like ensuring each country installs same-width railway tracks) to ensure service providers can efficiently resolve any technical issues in order to provide 99.999% reliability.
- 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 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 is now being utilised by over 75% of America’s Fortune 500 companies. At TeleBiz, we predict all organisations will migrate across to IP Telephony/VoIP at some point in time, irrespective of what the major telcos might argue. Incidentally, the major telcos are proactive in IP/VoIP research and development so we will see their versions of commercial IP/VoIP being rolled out in due course.
At TeleBiz, we are focused on ultimately migrating all of our customers to IP Telephony and VoIP and we are mindful to ensure such migrations are well planned for all of our customers.
