What are the advantages of using Voice Over Internet Protocol technology?
Should I be looking at Voice Over Internet Protocol technology at this point in time? What are the advantages of merging voice and data networks and will there be any cost savings?Consider the advantages Christoph Wittman, senior principal, AMS
The short answer is yes, you should be looking at the advantages of Voice Over Internet protocol (VoIP). However, whether you proceed is very specific to your organisation. Reduced cost is the primary benefit and business driver for the move to VoIP. This will encompass fees to external service providers, equipment purchase (or depreciation) and maintenance. But VoIP will not significantly reduce costs in all cases.
If you are seriously considering the move, the primary trade-off will be service quality. You should analyse current voice traffic patterns and ask whether this traffic is mostly internal, local or international. To which countries and at what times are your calls made? And can you afford to suffer slight service degradation?
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VoIP quality is not consistent for all voice traffic. It can't be relied on for long distance and international sales calls with clients. When VoIP calls go across multiple carriers and networks, you also can't guarantee the quality of service.
Some common quality of service standards will be provided by version 6 of the IP technology, but it will not be a panacea and this version will not be ubiquitous for at least three to four years. Most quality of service problems will get better through improvements in network management techniques within and across network operators not based on the implementation of IPv6.
From this baseline, you can start moving some traffic to VoIP by conducting a differential cost analysis. Companies don't find it beneficial to move all their traffic to VoIP. Typically, internal international traffic is the low hanging fruit for VoIP cost savings. But as the price and quality of data communications improves, you should continue migrating voice traffic to VoIP. Try it and see Mark Hodienne, engagement director, Concours Group
Organisations that use scenarios to underpin their e-strategies will have a head start. A good radar process will have picked up advancements in speech recognition technology and the introduction of VoiceXML that move us towards rich multimodal applications.
The time is right for business managers to begin playing with the concept of a voice-Web. What new products and services are possible? How can customer and partner relationships be strengthened? What new efficiencies can be achieved? A robust model of the benefits that voice technology brings will help organisations to understand when to dive in and invest.
"Launch and learn" is the appropriate mindset. Look for a basic application for a limited market to assess opportunity and build capability before scaling up investment. The interactive digital television market in the UK provides many examples of players that are launching and learning; these early movers are taking in important lessons about the characteristics of a new channel. Likewise, early movers in voice will learn important lessons that translate into sustainable business value.
If it looks like voice will have a major impact on your business model, then it is probably time to start playing. Check your network first Roger Rawlinson, head of consultancy, NCC Group
On the assumption that you are looking at data/ voice integration, then voice over Internet protocol (VoIP) should be considered.
The key questions cover the issue of whether it will work for your requirements and whether there will be cost savings. Your patterns of usage are an important factor. For instance, are there a significant number of international calls? Or are the majority local or internal to the organisation?
The fundamental requirement for voice provision is quality of service and there must be guaranteed bandwidth. Delays in transmission or garbled speech is not acceptable and is a far worse scenario than "drop outs" typically associated with mobile phone calls.
It is not just a case of implementing voice over the data network, you will need to re-design it to produce a voice/data network catering for both types of traffic.
If the network is outside your areas of control, you have a problem, as you cannot guarantee quality of service. There are scenarios in the public sector where joined-up networks will deliver the quality of service, similarly a private company could implement a "closed" system between offices. The key is having the control over the bandwidth.
There are gains to be made, such as significantly cheaper long distance and international calls over IP, consolidation of voice and data network and less duplication of support services. A key factor to remember, though, is that it is not a simple add-on, you must consider a re-design to obtain the benefits.
