IP Telephony Choices

FlatWorldSystems can help make the right choices and execute the strategies.

The good news is that there have never been so many choices for phone services. Just google and you will be presented with thousands of options. Making smart choices is key.

Except for the few parts of the world where phone rates are still high, cost of connecting should no longer be high on your priority list. High quality long distance services are available for pennies per minute. Saving an extra penny or two is a false economy or as the saying goes “penny-wise and pound (dollar) foolish”. Your saving on cost can hurt your business.

How should you make your choices? That will depend on your unique needs.

Let’s start with some basics. Any phone, fax, email, text message or page has at least two parties. Each may use a different method to send and to receive. As a business you need to consider first the other side of these connections. You can only be sure that the other side will almost certainly have voice phone service from the public telephone service. The others are also a high probability to be available in some form. Your priority is to make sure that you can connect reliably and stay connected without drops, snap, crackle, pop, static, gaps, changes of volume from shouts to whispers and to be sure that your message got through. Oh yes, you want the price to be low.

At the other end you can count on a phone, cell phone, pager, text device or something like a Blackberry. Starting with that, you need to look at your end of the connection. Is all your contact from the office? Do your staff work from home? On the road? Today it is hard to imagine a business that does not use a computer in some way to do business before, during and/or after a contact. Do you want to improve how the computer and telephony work together? Does your current phone system work for or against you?

Here are some choices and considerations. Check out the sections for “Getting it done” and “Cost & Business Case” too.

  • The Plain Old Telephone System (POTS) has been around for a century and is reliable. Odds are your office has either one or more separate phone lines and handsets, a key switch system with a central operator and individual station handsets, a more modern PBX central computer based switch with lots of features and individual handsets or maybe even an IP Telephony system from the last decade. All of these use the POTS network to make and receive calls. Thanks to the competition among phone companies and long distance providers they are low price to operate and to use as long as you don’t change the systems often. These systems are very reliable except for the quality inconsistencies for some long distance use.
  • VoIP, voice over internet protocol started in other guises in the early 1990’s when rates for long distance were very high so trading some quality for cost made sense. Today, because of the dramatic drop for long distance, VoIP marketing concentrates more on the cost per phone line connection to a home or office. Most homes and offices have enough of an internet access to support one or more voice lines delivered as VoIP sharing the internet access at about $10 per line rather than paying about $50+ per POTS line. Quality varies according to the provider, whether they use internet for their network or the POTS network once your connection reaches them. Quality suffers if your local internet access is poor or you can’t give priority to VoIP traffic. Generally this is a bad choice for a business unless you are careful with its design and use. Again it is “penny-wise and dollar foolish”. It’s a reasonable choice for home especially for big talkers.
  • Internet phone, teleconference and voice chat has made its mark. Skype is the most notable of these. On the Skype web site “Use Skype to call landlines and mobiles free in The US and Canada until the end of the year” appears prominently. Our experience with this is that the quality is not good with the connections and not a good business choice. On the other hand, Skype, MSN, Yahoo and other voice computer to computer connections are very good providing the parties all have the same technology and are willing to use it. POTS long distance between the Pacific Rim countries and North America are often very poor compared to the quality with Skype computer to computer. There have been rumors that Internet Service Providers and Internet backbone providers may block traffic for such services. It is a good plan to make use of these services only where it fits, the parties all have the same service and your business doesn’t count on the service to always be available i.e. have a Plan B, Plan C, Plan D, …
  • All in one Cell and Blackberry strategies have a huge following. Think back to Rim’s patent problems in the U.S. and how much reliance there is by the U.S. government on Blackberry technology so that it influenced the media, regulation and national concerns. At the remote end of a connection, these technologies are great so your business should be aware of them and make sure that your business choices let your clients, vendors, allies and staff make the most of them with whatever foundation your business uses.

IP Telephony is a very broad topic so let’s cut it down into two main sections. IP Telephony within an office and external.

  • IP Telephony (IPT) within an office is a replacement for the POTS, key switch and PBX systems of the past. The main points you should concentrate on for IP Telephony is its flexibility (ease of change) and its ability to integrate into your business process. There is a cost benefit too but that alone does not make change appealing. IPT within an office consists of a central computer server, a local area network (LAN) and stations which are physical “hard” IP phones or software program IP phones. The LAN can be wired or wireless with the caveat that you MUST control the traffic on the LAN such that the telephony traffic has priority and does not suffer from drops and slowdowns interacting with anything else. You can have an unlimited number of stations with minimal effort and usually no cost other than the hard IP phones. Soft phones are either free or minimal licensing costs for commercial versions. When the system is put together properly (not a question of cost), the quality of the connections from either hard IP phones and software IP phones is every bit as good as the PBX systems. All kinds features are available on every station from:
    • hands free
    • voice mail and voice mail forward via email
    • teleconference
    • caller ID
    • held lines
    • multi-lines
    • paging
    • call waiting
    • logging
    • recording
    • integration with computer programs
    • follow-me ringing and forwarding
    • calling queues
    • ACD automatic call distribution
    • Phone directory
    • Company directory
    • Auto attendant voice menu
    • Smart outbound line selection
    • Rules and protection for inbound and outbound routing
  • IP Telephony (IPT) externally very simply is all of the above station features available anywhere via an internet connection. The station can be a hard or software phone with all the same features available in the office. The connection can be at home for a telecommuter or in an airport lounge or coffee shop. The access can be secured and controlled. The cost to implement and operate is very low.

As food for thought, when it comes to technology price is an unreliable indicator for quality or suitability. Fancy features, a slick look and the latest innovations are only of value when they suit your needs. Understand first what you need, can afford and can do. Understand why you should or should not make a particular choice.


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