Data has been the belle of the corporate IT ball for
long enough. Now voice is getting the attention and users need to
look at which form of VoIP is going to best suit the needs of their
business.
Voice has been a neglected aspect of corporate communications
for the past few years. Both CIOs and the telecoms industry have
focused on getting businesses moved on to an all-IP platform, from
a data transport perspective. Voice is, however, still one of those
critical business applications.
Admittedly, much of it is carried over mobile networks today,
but the portion carried on the fixed network is receiving enormous
amounts of attention. Some of the factors causing this will be red
herrings, but some will shape the future of corporate
communications. So, is voice over IP the answer? As with any
question put to an analyst, the answer depends on the
definition.
VoIP as a generic term covers a multitude of services. The
principle of carrying voice service across an IP network is the
issue at stake. How it gets delivered is a matter for the telecoms
and networking industry. If users accept that they want to go into
a VoIP environment they need to feel comfortable with the
propositions of the industry.
The time for hiding behind technology should be gone, and that
lovely word "transparency" needs to be at the fore. So, what are
the options?
Traditional TDM PBX over the Wan
Since the people responsible for telecoms in most companies like
the fact that the investment is sunk and the systems work, the
first natural step is to link any different locations through the
IP network and avoid the costs of inter-office calls. This can be
done in several ways, but all result in savings on calls within the
company.
IP PBX replacing the old guard
PBXs generally have a lifecycle of seven or eight years. With
budgets having been squeezed in the past few years, many have left
the devices happily running. Companies often have different PBX
makes in different locations and little, if any, feature-rich
inter-working.
Pilots of IP PBXs were carried out a few years ago, but the
maturity of the final service and total cost of ownership was not
convincing. Several years on, the reliability of the IP solution
and the cost of delivering the service is now more compelling.
IP Centrex
Centrex had a bad press the first time around. Today we have
many providers offering IP Centrex. The downside comes in the form
of a generally more limited feature set, but the upside is the
ability to serve down to very small locations off the shared
platform.
Managed & hosted IP PBX
One of the major impacts of telcos' investment in
infrastructure, and broadband in particular, is that we now have
much better connectivity capable of supporting remote services.
Many end-users no longer want to have the headache of managing
the PBX and its services, and service providers can manage these
devices remotely on behalf of customers. This reduces the burden on
the IT function within the company and, with financing deals, can
even reduce capital expenditure.
If the end-user wishes, the IP PBX can even be hosted at a
remote datacentre. This also offers a PBX consolidation play for
larger companies, which might previously have had multiple PBXs out
in different locations. A single hosted system can serve the whole
of the company on a hosted basis.
One important addition to the PBX armory is the soft client.
With the improved IP connectivity and IP PBX platform, come a range
of IP phones that can deliver services over and above the
traditional handsets.
The soft phone also adds a mobility component to the solution.
Mobile workers can log on from home, a Wi-Fi hotspot or from a
hotel room with a broadband connection and have their laptop act as
their office phone, with access to all of the office PBX functions.
This is particularly appealing in the light of the high proportion
of total telecoms spend on mobile, which can be over 50% in some
companies.
Another improvement, from the CIO perspective at least, is the
chance to offer mobile extensions to the PBX. Dual-mode handsets
allow the CIO to claw back some of the outgoing minutes that people
currently send the way of the more expensive mobile operators.
Routing outgoing calls over the internal network will reduce the
total voice bill.
There are other VoIP options, including voice over a broadband
connection from remote locations, and, of course, Skype and the
like. These are important issues, but are generally addressed once
the choice of one of the above has been made.
So, is VoIP the answer? Well, it isn't the question. The
question is only when to move and which form of VoIP will suit the
company.
Chris Lewis is enterprise practice leader at analyst firm
Ovum