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The Role of VoIP: When and Where Does It Make Sense for Your Business?

By Jon Henderson.

If your organization is considering upgrading your phone system, you have no doubt researched a technology called VoIP. Voice over IP communication networks continue to gain in popularity with businesses across Maine because of their ability to handle converged voice and data traffic, provide advanced calling features and potentially lower telecom operating costs over time. Infonetics Research, an international market research and consulting firm specializing in data networking and telecom, recently projected that half of small and two-thirds of large organizations in North America will be using VoIP products and services by 2010.

The Vonage® and Digital Phone® Effect
The growing popularity of low cost, consumer (VoIP) Voice over Internet Protocol services has created a high level of awareness about alternative phone services delivered over the Internet or an IP infrastructure. The fact is VoIP represents a large segment of communications technology under development. As such, some IP solutions represent a smart technology strategy for your business. Others are more of a cheap commodity and ‘sexy-sounding’ alternative than a viable communications solution for your organization.

What to avoid
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 (dial tone) over the raw Internet is still a risky bet for businesses. The variable conditions that exist in public access networks (storms, power loss, network congestion) 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. The complexity of providing quality voice using traditional telecommunications technology is exponentially multiplied when that technology is delivered over a data network. Too many moving parts can lead to an overbuilt network that becomes difficult to administer – 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 caused by a network that is ultimately too complex.

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 (POTS, Centrex, PRI, etc.) served off a switching infrastructure designed for voice and voice only. If you want to dabble in more of the commodity-based, lower quality services, then be sure to do it over non-critical lines that will not impact your vital customer voice communications (e.g., fax lines).

What works and why
While VoIP is not quite ready for prime time as 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 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 has what is referred to as Quality of Service (QoS).

In a private, converged network (voice, data, video, etc.), QoS must be deployed or call quality will suffer from the inability to prioritize latency intolerant voice over latency tolerant data traffic (i.e. without QoS an employee emailing photos to their cousin in Calais will potentially compete for bandwidth and degrade the sound of a phone call). 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 as your computer system (Local Area Network – LAN) assuming that network infrastructure has sufficient QoS controls in place. This converged strategy reduces the overhead in maintaining two separate networks (voice and data) and simplifies new network construction (a single cable run as opposed two). Unified messaging, application development and employee productivity are but a few of the benefits your local interconnect company will be happy to discuss in showing you ROI for IP solutions. VoIP, as a foundation for an internal office communication system, deserves strong consideration for your business.

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 (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 between end points (telephones) so that customer experiences are not degraded by inappropriate technology choices.

Enter QoS enabled WAN’s (more three letter acronyms that want to make you use a four-letter one). These next generation WAN services extend your ability to provide QoS enabled IP-voice communications from within your Local Area Network (LAN) throughout your organization’s WAN infrastructure.

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 functionality 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.

Jon Henderson is Director of Mid-Maine Communications, a true facilities-based telecommunications company. Jon.henderson@midmaine-telplus.com

For more information about VoIP, please call 1-877-MID-MAINE or email: sales@midmaine.com.