It seems that wherever
I go or whoever I speak to these days it is not long
before the question “so what do you think about
VoIP?” is posed. This is invariably followed
with the supplementary, “Is it the panacea
that some people seem to think it is?”
In order to address these questions
it is, in my opinion, necessary to remember one
key issue that is all too often neglected by so
many in the Industry. The Customer is King. We
should all remember that we are here to provide
solutions and technology that the Customer wants,
or perceives can add value to his business – at
an overall cost that is commercially viable. Not
to offer solutions that some feel is what the customer
should have because that is what they have developed!!
Anyone who forgets this basic principle does so
at his or her peril!
In truth the Customer has, over
recent years, become educated and now takes for
granted, rightly or wrongly, that they can expect
costs to continue to go down while the quality
and number of services continues to increase. Conventional
dial tone continues to be taken for granted and
most customers don’t even listen for it any
more – they just dial!
The quality of conventional service
we enjoy today is the result of many years of work
and countless millions invested by the PTTs. The
fact that you can create a link between any two
points on this earth and communicate with each
other is the result of the deployment, against
predefined standards, of switches, cables and various
types of radio systems.
Much of this communications information
is already transported via a packet structured
digital media. Packet systems first appeared as
long ago as the 1960s.
So, the real question to ask is
probably “What business benefits can VoIP
offer, firstly to the Customer, and secondly the
Equipment Suppliers and Service Providers?” If
one thing is certain in this world, given the current
state of the IT/Telecoms Industry it is that what
comes next has to be perceived to be at least as
good, if not better, than what it is replacing.
This, to my mind, means such fundamental things
as quality of service, reliability, security, stability
- not to mention value for money, and overall cost.
This raises some interesting questions
about the quality of VoIP available today.
VoIP calls can be compressed but
there are currently no Standards that have to be
complied with, which begs the question “who
is to be the judge of what is “good/acceptable” as
against “bad/unacceptable” quality
of service? (How many times have you heard the
VoIP salesman’s caveat “not guaranteed”?)
Today we all have good quality voice communication
with the exception of perhaps mobiles when one
regularly hear “I will call you back from
a land line!”
Other, and perhaps more important
issues, revolve around the inevitable time delays
that result using VoIP. Audible delays or “latency” is
inherent in the technology and it is difficult
to see how this will be overcome. Furthermore,
with more and more companies moving to non-geographic
numbers and Least Cost Indirect access codes, it
is easily possible to conceive of a “round
trip” delay where Carriers, using VoIP on
long haul routes, could add up to anything up to
5 seconds!! – This is particularly pertinent
for digital mobiles or international calls.
Other issues involve the ever-sensitive
issue of security. It should be remembered that
in today’s world of virus attacks and hacking,
VoIP is simply data accessible on PCs and servers – and
we all know that the reliability of computer systems
and data routing is far lower than traditional
telephone systems.
And finally, the matter of cost.
VoIP raises some major questions as deployment
begins the diversification of the intelligence
from the center of the Carrier Networks to the
End-User. This dramatically alters the cost model
moving the equipment (and cost) from the PTT toward
the customer. Add this to the cost of IP phones
at c £180 as against £10 for a Perfectly
Ordinary Telephone (POT) and you begin to see why
the adoption of VoIP technology needs to be looked
at extremely carefully.
As Tim Gingell so rightly says
(Opinion: Comms Business Feb.2002) “…there
is still no killer application…no single
defining product…what is unclear is what
will be the key drivers…this is a very young
market and everyone is proceeding cautiously, but
IP telephony has tremendous potential”
Of that there is no doubt. However
the question remains ….how long will it be
before VoIP comes of age? – or is it still
some way off for the Customer looking for value
for money today??
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