Nermine Shaker

Principal Consultant
Abilita Telecom Consultants
nshaker@abilita.com

You know how important telecommunication services are to your business. They let you communicate efficiently with colleagues, workers and customers. They also allow you to serve your customers’ needs directly by giving them direct access to your goods and services.

Telecom services also provide one of the major components of your public identity. Your phone number or website reminds customers who you are, what you offer and what services you provide. Since these benefits are important to make your business successful, you should always be looking for new telecom services that can increase your efficiency, help your bottom line and improve your identity with the public. One solution that addresses these issues is a hosted PBX.

What is Hosted PBX

PBX stands for Private Branch exchange.  With traditional PBX, an incoming call is routed through switchboard hardware to different extensions throughout the company.  This hardware is usually kept somewhere on company premises.  With a hosted PBX service, the call will go to the carrier’s central office, get processed through the hardware at their site and then will be sent to your phone extensions.  So, Hosted PBX is an IP-based PBX (Internet Protocol) service that is hosted by someone else and provides call routing for your company. These systems have been in use for decades.

Today, the technology has improved enough that firms should seriously consider the advantages of using a hosted PBX network before deciding what kind of telecom system they wish to use.

Why You Should Consider a Hosted PBX System

The advantages that a hosted PBX network provides may make a convincing argument for using such a system. Businesses generally save money on their phone and Internet bills by switching to a hosted PBX network because all calls and data are processed at one centralized location, which reduces the need to use a service provider’s resources. It also lets firms easily create as many lines of communication as they need because all those lines are also centrally located. In addition, it is easy to handle any number of phone calls and Internet connections at one time.

So with a hosted PBX system, you won’t have to invest in a new on-site phone system, which can be costly.  However, you may need to purchase new Internet Protocol (IP) phone sets, but the investment is minimal.  You’ll get all the features of traditional PBX including auto attendant, voice mail, call routing, and unified communications without the huge investment of traditional PBX.

That Sounds Good, But What About…

There are some potential disadvantages that you must considered before deciding on whether or not to use a hosted PBX system. For example, some firms’ existing telecommunications infrastructure is too large and/or complicated to convert without an unacceptable level of disruption to their communications.

Reliability is a huge concern with hosted PBX service.  If your connection to the Internet fails, for whatever reason, you will lose your phone service.  Make sure there is redundancy in place, an alternative network that will take over if one fails.  If the telephone system is crucial to your business and even a short disruption of service is unacceptable, you may want to reconsider using an IP voice solution at all.

Another drawback is the potential time and effort to teach your firm’s workers how to use the new services. This difficulty may lead to decreased short-term productivity and increased marginal labor costs that may offset any cost savings the service would provide you.

Finally, the short lifespan of the technology needed to implement a hosted PBX network may make it impractical in the long run for some firms to use. Computer technology changes often enough that your firm must weigh the possibility of having to replace the equipment against any benefits you may receive from a hosted PBX service. Your individual situation will determine what’s best for your company.

Questions to Ask if You Are Considering a Hosted PBX Network

While considering the advantages and disadvantages of using a hosted PBX system, you should ask several questions before making your final decision. What kinds of businesses benefit from using hosted PBX services? Smaller businesses have certain long-term advantages that may make them better candidates for using hosted PBX services that larger firms may not have.  Will my business benefit in the long run by using this service? If so, you then should ask which service provider best fits your needs.

Telecom providers have hosted PBX systems that offer a wide variety of services for your firm to consider. This makes it all the more important for you to shop around carefully before making a final decision. Finally, do you have enough time and resources to use the service in the long run? Because there are many short-term disadvantages in setting up the service, you must be willing to commit to using the service for some time before you will see any savings. Otherwise, it is a waste of your time and resources.

Hosted PBX systems offer many benefits to firms who can best utilize their services. Before deciding if you are one of them, due diligence is needed to weigh the benefits against the potential disadvantages that could make using the service untenable. In the end, this careful analysis can make a huge impact on your firm’s bottom line.

About the author:

Nermine Shaker has a M.S. in Telecommunications Management from Golden Gate University with more than twenty years of experience in planning, implementing, managing and consulting on telecommunications projects.  Ms. Shaker has generated millions of dollars worth of savings for her clients.  She is a Principal Consultant at Abilita. 

Nermine can be reached at (310) 793-0711 or nshaker@abilita.com

Nermine Shaker

Principal Consultant
Abilita Telecom Consultants
nshaker@abilita.com

Today there is a better alternative available to the traditional PBX phone. This alternative is hosted PBX systems. PBX stands for Private Branch eXchange. With traditional PBX, an incoming call can be routed through switchboard hardware to different extensions throughout the company. This hardware is usually kept somewhere on company premises.  

When a call is placed to a company with a hosted PBX service, it goes to the carrier’s central office, gets processed through the hardware at their site and then it’s sent to your phone extensions. So, Hosted PBX is an IP-based PBX (Internet Protocol) service that is hosted by someone else and provides call routing for your company.

This means that hosted PBX customers don’t buy, install or maintain any PBX equipment at their site. This can save a lot of time and money. Companies want to concentrate on their business and not on their telephone and email systems. And the expense for upgrading and maintaining these systems are huge and come with many IT challenges. Many small to mid-size companies can’t spend the money for a call center, so a hosted PBX system might be the right choice for them.

Hosted PBX offers rich features, excellent quality and wide coverage.   These features are more advanced than traditional PBX and they are easy to manage. This is because the hosted PBX services provide users with excellent web management. Most of the services provide a platform that makes it easy for users to create new accounts, make extensions and manage call queues with the web interface. 

Other benefits of hosted PBX include managing incoming calls such as voicemail, faxes, automated messages, conferences, touchtone menus, call records and those phone calls that need to go to the next available person in a department.

It is relatively easy to manage voice mail with a hosted PBX system. With this service you can also utilize your current voice mail facility. If a call comes on your mobile phone and you don’t answer it, it will automatically roll onto voice mail.  Generally, hosted PBX services have better control over simple call transfers and they can also manage a higher number of phone calls.

The various ways to handle calls include forwarding them to voice mail, granting permissions from the attending person on the other end and automated voice mail recording. With busy lines and unanswered calls, voice mail can be easily setup and it performs well.

Besides all the great call routing functions, other great advantages attached to the hosted PBX systems are lower entry costs, support costs, reliability, improved scalability and flexibility. Hosted PBX also allows greater ease of management and it is better when you need flexibility with your telephony. Let’s look at some of these advantages.

Lower Entry Costs

Since you are using the host’s infrastructure, your start-up costs for a hosted PBX service will be lower than if you purchased your own phone system.

Lower Supporting Costs

You can manage some support yourself, like adding users or lines by either going online or making a phone call. For some of these operations, you don’t have to wait for the phone guy to show up.

Reliability

With hosted PBX, there is usually round-the-clock support. Also, for disaster recovery, there is full data access and redundancy.

Improved Scalability

You can get the exact number of lines that you need for your company. It’s easy to add and remove lines as your company grows or contracts.

Flexibility and Productivity

Hosted PBX system has an advantage over the traditional PBX systems in many ways. It provides features that traditional PBX doesn’t have and there is more flexibility with it. 

Routing calls to phones actually allow you to ring on any phone by calling the extension. Such calls can be made on the mobile phones of your employees who are traveling and cannot access their company phone. This keeps all the traveling employees in constant touch with the office and they can transfer calls as usual. If you have employees who travel a lot, then hosted PBX might be the best system for you.

The biggest considerations in company expenses are capital expenses and operating expenses. Employing a hosted PBX service eliminates most of the capital expenses and reduces operating expenses. Keeping your communication capabilities up to date without hampering your ability to focus on your business is vital. Hosted PBX will provide all of the technology; features and benefits found in expensive PBX systems at a much lower cost and might be a viable option for your business.

About the author:

Nermine Shaker has a M.S. in Telecommunications Management from Golden Gate University with more than twenty years of experience in planning, implementing, managing and consulting on telecommunications projects. Ms. Shaker has generated millions of dollars worth of savings for her clients. She is a Principal Consultant at Abilita. 

Nermine can be reached at (310) 793-0711 or nshaker@abilita.com

Nermine Shaker

Principal Consultant
Abilita Telecom Consultants
nshaker@abilita.com

As with anything new, Voice Over Internet Protocol has gotten a lot of attention. It has been touted as being the wave of the future. It can save money and simplify your business operations. But VoIP isn’t for every company. And does it deliver on its promises?

First, what is VoIP?  Simply, it's Voice over Internet Protocol – using the Internet as a voice phone line and more.  Second, why is it becoming so popular, and could your company use it? This answer is much less simple, because there are in fact a great many things that could influence your decision. Ask a business why they use the service and they will cite its features packages, and low costs, and very possibly its reliability.  Let's take a look at just some of the reasons this service is used and a few pros and cons.

One reason it’s popular has to do with the ease of installation. So long as a business has an Internet connection and computers - and they almost always will - the set up and use of this advanced technology shouldn’t be at all difficult. Having regular phone service would mean a company would have to pay for phone lines and all the other lines connected to and within the business. With business VoIP, this is no longer a requirement. Most companies already have a broadband connection, and when using VoIP, they will use their broadband connection without paying the fees for another installed system. This is not always the case, though. When you put voice and data on the same network, it can be a complex situation.

Before you do anything, you have to make sure your infrastructure is up to the task of supporting IP based voice and data. If it isn’t, going with VoIP will be a nightmare. If you are seriously thinking about VoIP, your company should do a pre-deployment assessment. If you have older or inadequate infrastructure, you may have to upgrade your network, which might cancel out any savings you might receive.

Another factor to take into consideration is the fact that with switching to VoIP service, your telecom personnel will need to become IT proficient and/or your IT personnel will need to become more familiar with the intricacies of telecom.

Probably the biggest single reason that providers promote for any company to switch over from their typical phone service to VoIP is the lower overall costs. They pitch that while small businesses might have to pay more for their scale than large ones comparatively, business VoIP leaves its predecessors in the dust.

However, these huge cost savings were more common in the initial days of VoIP solutions. Then, the service wasn’t as reliable but the cost was much cheaper than traditional phone service. Today, the service offered by VoIP is nearly as good as basic phone service, but the price difference is not nearly as wide. If your company is looking at VoIP as a primary way to cut costs, you should take a hard look at all the costs involved to make sure it’s right for you.

One last item that providers publicize about their VoIP service is the customization that was not previously available to them.  No matter how big or small a business might be, VoIP providers are almost always willing to work with them on an individual basis, finding them the plan that works best for their size and all of their employees.

VoIP providers are also big fans of the perks companies can get, the number of which has grown hugely in recent years.  Providers offer all sorts of things that might cost extra with traditional phone lines, including multi-line services, call waiting, caller ID, call return, call block and more - and with VoIP you can have them all.

It all comes down to figuring out why your company wants VoIP. Switching can be an expensive proposition. Not only in buying or upgrading equipment, but also with re-educating employees and time spent making the system work correctly. It has great potential and will provide some advantages to nearly any company, but not everyone should make the switch.

To truly take advantage of VoIP and the multimedia applications that come with it, your workforce should be distributed with branch offices or satellite offices, telecommuters and personnel out in the field.

As you can see, there are reasons for a company to consider getting rid of landlines in favor of VoIP phones. There are also reasons not to. With an economy where companies are looking to cut corners, it’s not surprising that they are looking at switching to VoIP. VoIP can be a great thing, but it might not be a great thing for your company.

The reality is that if your organization is thinking about making the switch to VoIP, you should do your homework. You should know why you are switching and make sure to get a detailed costs/benefits analysis before making your decision.

About the author:

Nermine Shaker has a M.S. in Telecommunications Management from Golden Gate University with more than twenty years of experience in planning, implementing, managing and consulting on telecommunications projects. Ms. Shaker has generated millions of dollars worth of savings for her clients. She is a Principal Consultant at Abilita.

Nermine can be reached at (310) 793-0711 or nshaker@abilita.com

Nermine Shaker

Principal Consultant
Abilita Telecom Consultants
nshaker@abilita.com

VoIP stands for Voice over Internet Protocol and is quickly becoming a fixture in the corporate world. Ask why and you'll get a barrage of answers, ranging from the money companies save to various packages that can be added on for little additional costs. Those who tout VoIP promise many benefits over the traditional PSTN (Public Switched Telephone Network). The most mentioned ones are cost savings, new calling features, and reduced infrastructure of converged networks. Here is a closer look at just a few of the reasons behind the popularity of VoIP.

In the past, Internet telephone services have been seen as being of a lower quality or less reliable than the regular phone lines that came before them. However, this is no longer true, and an increasing number of businesses have started using business VoIP, which can get them connections just as good as their traditional ones, but at a lower cost.

The potential advantages to VoIP come in two categories – hard benefits and soft benefits. These hard advantages have a clearly defined cost savings like the amount of money saved every year by replacing a PBX with a VoIP server. Soft benefits, however, may or may not save the company actual money. An example would be the increased productivity of employees able to access their phones while travelling.

The first reason for VoIP’s popularity is that business VoIP is easy to use for any company that has computers and an Internet connection - in other words, basically every company around. When companies add a service provider, they almost never have any trouble making the transition or setting up and using their new service. Transitioning takes a little planning and usually it’s made easier when a Telecom Management professional is involved. A company is now usually able to keep their old phone number when they switch.

Reason number two for many is the perks that are offered by service providers to the companies that use them. These include multi-line services, call waiting, caller ID, call return, call block and more. The expansion of VoIP providers in recent years means that there is little you can get from a regular phone line that you can't get at better rates with the new technology.

Again, the overall costs for business VoIP are also a big plus to its users. Small businesses have to pay a bit more, but for the most part, rates are still much lower than those offered by normal phone service companies. Add-ons are cheap as well. Many companies only have to pay about one cent a minute for international calls and some simply have unlimited calls.

Business VoIP allows companies to better use tools they already have. Instead of having to pay for an entirely separate system of phone lines, companies can just use the broadband Internet connection they probably already have. VoIP maximizes the potential of this present outlet without requiring the installation and fees of an additional one.

Yet another thing that companies love about VoIP service is the ability to have their plan custom fit to their individual needs. Nearly all VoIP providers will work with businesses of any scale, letting them have features adapted to a very large or small number of users. This way, each consumer gets the best deal for all of its employees.

VoIP phones are equipped with features like call forwarding, voice mail boxes, and call records which will make company communications more efficient. Portability is another great feature with VoIP service. Employees who travel frequently can make calls through the Internet and have their same extension number and user applications still available to them. This enhanced mobility lets companies allow employees to have more flexible work options. This could improve productivity and reduce facility and real estate costs for some companies.

The addition of voice mail, email and fax integration, the application of Unified Messaging – the ability to retrieve your messages anytime, anywhere and in any way – is another alluring productivity enticement. Also, the ever-annoying game of “phone tag” could be eliminated with advanced call routing. Call routing can also be integrated with CRM systems (Customer Relationship Management) to check customer information and route calls to the appropriate number. There are always new features and applications to use and these new features can be added to VoIP phones more quickly and easily than traditional systems. 

When they really start to look at business VoIP, companies will find that they don't really lose anything in exchange for lower prices - in fact, they gain a lot. Fast and trustworthy, VoIP phones aren't really that different than landlines - they just don't have all the bills. For those struggling with hard economic times, that's great for a better bottom-line.

About the author:

Nermine Shaker has a M.S. in Telecommunications Management from Golden Gate University with more than twenty years of experience in planning, implementing, managing and consulting on telecommunications projects. Ms. Shaker has generated millions of dollars worth of savings for her clients. She is a Principal Consultant at Abilita.

Nermine can be reached at (310) 793-0711 or nshaker@abilita.com

Matt Sweeney
Principal Consultant
Abilita Telecom Consultants
msweeney@abilita.com

Recently Pacific Business News published an article describing the broad array of phone choices a local business considered in upgrading their phone service.  Read more about their selection of a VoIP solution by clicking here.

Nermine Shaker
Principal Consultant
Abilita Telecom Consultants
nshaker@abilita.com

For mid-size to large companies, implementing VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) for their telephone service can be a tremendous benefit. You know that using VoIP can potentially save your company money, especially if you make many domestic long distance calls or international calls. And, while it all sounds exciting, your business depends on your telephone service and it’s more than a little nerve wracking to actually make the switch.

Introducing your new telephone system is not something you can do in a day. It’s important to get it right and you can lay the groundwork for a smooth transition with these following suggestions.

Who’s in Charge?

The initial step in planning the rollout is to decide who will be in charge of each phase. In most midsize to large companies, the telephone system is managed by one department and the IT structure is maintained by another group. In moving to a Voice over Internet Protocol environment, your telephone system becomes part of the IT structure.

However, IT personnel may be unfamiliar with the special requirements of telephony applications while the telephone personnel might not be familiar with the Internet. It is important to ensure that you have people in charge who understand the intricacies of VoIP. You may need to integrate the two departments or bring in a Telecom Management Professional to facilitate the process.

Bit by Bit

It is very risky to switch over all your phones to VoIP at once. A better way would be to set up an initial test with one department or a small group. This rolling out in phases will allow you to pinpoint, diagnose and fix any problems that might occur within a more manageable group. You can then increase your VoIP footprint as you get more comfortable.

Get Your Network Right

A proper Local Area Network (LAN) is paramount in supporting your VoIP system. It is the backbone for the system to operate and ensuring the integrity of your network connection will ensure quality of service (QoS).

Voice over Internet Protocol only works over broadband connections. Businesses want to save money by making the switch to VoIP, but may forget to increase the bandwidth from their Internet Service Provider (ISP). As a result, you can have delays, static, echoes and even lost connections.

You should do a complete assessment of your network to make sure that all switches, cabling, and any other components are of sufficient grade and speed for your system’s needs. An Internet speed test can simulate VoIP phone calls to let you know what you can expect from using your existing connection with a hosted VoIP PBX (Private Branch eXchange). Catching problems early in this area will save countless headaches later.

At this time you should also make sure your server’s security is up to date. Also update all operating systems on all networked devices, including mobile phones.

Quality, Security, New Hardware, and Compliance Issues

We are all used to the very high quality of our traditional telephone network (PSTN – Public Switched Telephone Network) and expect the same from any new service. However, voice transmissions are in real-time and thus less forgiving than regular IP transmissions, such as email. Quality of Service (QoS) will depend on making sure your network has sufficient bandwidth and speed so your calls don’t have jitter, echoes or degradation of voice quality.

VoIP calls are sent over the Internet. Because of this, those voice packets are subject to the same threats as your data. There are many ways that your VoIP network can be compromised and you will need to treat your phone network just like you do your data – with firewalls, encryption and virus protection. Security should be carefully thought out and addressed at the beginning, not as an afterthought.

It’s important to choose the proper phone for your business. Make sure you comparison shop and check such items as screen resolution, HD voice technology, backlit LCD and the many other options that can be used.

If you’re in a regulated industry like healthcare or finance, your data network is subject to government compliance requirements. The same will be true for your new VoIP network. Privacy of client data must be protected.

Another important issue that must be addressed is 911 services. Because of the portability of the equipment, emergency centers don’t always know the address information from your VoIP phone. In most instances now, using a 911 tool, you can verify your emergency service coverage.

Get Out Your Crystal Ball

While you are planning your VoIP needs, take into consideration your possible future needs. Plan for growth in capacity and possible new applications, such as video conferencing. Sometimes it’s easier and more cost effective to upgrade infrastructure now to address future concerns than it would be to have to do the whole process again.

Backup Plans for Network and Power

Unlike your regular phone lines, your VoIP service is dependent on your Internet connection. And, unlike your regular phone that will continue to operate during most power failures, your VoIP service will not. Redundant connections will prevent loss of your phone service if one ISP should go down. Likewise, backup power supplies or backup generators will be needed in the event of a power outage.

You must always monitor and test the network to ensure continuous success. You must also install any code revisions and security updates that your vendor provides. Just as in data networks, a little common sense will go a long way and keeping these guidelines in mind will smooth the way in making the switch to VoIP.

About the author:

Nermine Shaker has a M.S. in Telecommunications Management from Golden Gate University with more than twenty years of experience in planning, implementing, managing and consulting on telecommunications projects. Ms. Shaker has generated millions of dollars worth of savings for her clients. She is a Principal Consultant at Abilita.

Nermine Shaker
Principal Consultant
Abilita Telecom Consultants
nshaker@abilita.com

You’ve seen the commercials and read the news advertisements for telephone service using your computer: very cheap monthly fees; make all the calls you want; keep your telephone number forever; and voice quality as good as a landline. You’ve heard the claims and you’ve heard the term “VoIP.” Here’s the scoop.

VoIP stands for Voice over Internet Protocol and it does what the name suggests – it transmits voice data using IP packets over the Internet. It is also called Internet Telephony. It’s easier to understand VoIP if you know a little about our telephone system – PSTN (the Public Switched Telephone Network) and a little about the Internet.

Your traditional landline transmits calls through copper or fiber cables in the ground or on telephone poles with a cable connected to your home. When someone makes a call, one continuous route is made between the two phones and the information flows continuously in this loop. As you know from paying your bills, the longer the route the more expensive the call.

VoIP works a little differently. It works using the Internet, which is a packet-based network. Packet-based just means that instead of sending one continuous string of information, it sends out smaller packets of information.

With VoIP, your voice is converted into a digital signal that travels over the Internet. There are three ways that this can be done: 1) using a VoIP telephone; 2) using a computer with speakers and a microphone; or 3) using a regular telephone with a VoIP adaptor. Because the IP packets are tiny by comparison, unlike downloading files, this all happens in real time, just like your regular phone.

Advantages of VoIP

Because VoIP provides services through the Internet, once you have the equipment in place there are a number of benefits.

The main reason for VoIP’s popularity is its cost advantage. With regular phone service, you usually pay a monthly flat fee for your local calls and a per-minute charge for long distance calls. Internet connections are charged using a monthly flat fee only. Because VoIP doesn’t charge a per-minute fee for long distance, you wouldn’t incur those charges. If you make long distance calls, VoIP most certainly will save you a lot of money. If you used the Internet for both your data traffic and voice calls, you could get rid of one monthly payment.

The other cost advantage is that since it uses a broadband Internet connection, it efficiently uses the existing infrastructure you already use with your computer. There is only minimal software and hardware to buy.

Disadvantages to VoIP

There are a few disadvantages with VoIP. A major one is QoS or Quality of Service. Since there are packets carrying your voice information instead of a continuous flow of information, there could be delay problems, weird sounds, echoes and noise. VoIP quality depends on many factors – your broadband connection, your hardware, your Internet Service Provider (ISP) and the destination of your call, just to name a few.

While VoIP has made substantial progress over the past 5 years in terms of Quality of Service, it still has a way to go.

Another disadvantage is that in the event of a power failure, you will lose the ability to make and receive calls unless you have a backup battery for your computer. With traditional phone service, the cables are directly linked to the phone lines and the phone company provides power independently of your home or company’s electrical power system. Thus you normally do not lose a phone signal due to loss of power with traditional service.

Another criticism of VoIP service is its historical problems with 911 emergency services. With traditional phone service, the 911 system can identify the location and number of the call because it is connected and routed locally. With VoIP, you are calling through the Internet and the actual signal may travel substantial distances before being routed to a local 911-service center. Thus geographically, the 911 system might have trouble identifying your location. Most VoIP services today include what is known as enhanced 911 service. This is a process by which the signal traveling through the Internet carries with it a physical address for the calling location. At present VoIP equipment providers may charge an additional fee for this service.

Businesses that may want to use VoIP to save money need to consider any security issues that exist. This is because with VoIP, information is sent through the Internet. Just as with any computer connection, it is possible that a hacker can intercept the information being transmitted. It is important to investigate the VoIP equipment provider’s network to determine how they route data, what firewalls or other protections are afforded for security purposes.

If you are ready to look into VoIP for your phone or fax service, you can visit electronics retailers, large discount retailers and search online for information. There are a variety of VoIP providers at present. The equipment that is used, the cost of the equipment, the cost of accessories, and the cost of any enhanced services can and should be compared.

You should purchase the system and use the provider that you feel would work best for your needs in terms of how many phones you want to connect to the system, what type of security you require and the cost of purchasing the equipment and the service.

You may want to use a telecom management service for a cost analysis to see if VoIP will be a good fit for your company.

VoIP is still a new technology and hopefully there will be more and more improvements and innovations in the coming years.

About the author:

Nermine Shaker has a M.S. in Telecommunications Management from Golden Gate University with more than twenty-five years of experience in planning, implementing, managing and consulting on telecommunications projects. Nermine has generated millions of dollars worth of savings for her clients. She is a Principal Consultant at Abilita.

Nermine can be reached at (310) 793-0711 or nshaker@abilita.com

Today many businesses are considering a transition to VoIP. It is no longer a question of if, but when. This consideration may be brought on because:

1. the existing phone system needs replacing. New PBX’s are all based on VoIP technology.

2. there are perceived cost savings to have voice and data on the same network infrastructure. Managing one infrastructure as opposed to two can resulting maintenance and management cost savings. In addition, moves, adds or changes (MACs) are much simpler in a VoIP environment than they were with a legacy system.

3. improved employee productivity is available in a VoIP environment. Integrating email, voicemail and fax messaging onto a single queue, knowing the status of the internal party you are trying to contact (presence) and being able to provide the system with routing preferences specific to caller identities or time of day (find me / follow me) are just a few of the features that can improve productivity.

4. there are ways to improve customer service using VoIP. Providing customers with the options of communicating through web chat or email and processing those communications through the same network used by voice callers can enhance customer communication. Interactive Voice Response (IVR) can be used to improve customer response time.

When an organization is considering a move to VoIP there are many complexities to be considered; right from choosing the correct phone system, designing the system to meet its needs, implementing the phone system, managing the converged network after implementation to ensuring quality and reliable dial tone for its users on an ongoing basis. Successful deployments will be based on sound planning and change management facilitated by a broad range of assessment, monitoring and capacity management tools.

Based on its VoIP deployment experience, Abilita has created a list of suggestions to help guide an enterprise that is considering a transition to a VoIP platform.

1. Educate Users and Management. A VoIP investment can be significant. In order to maximize the return on investment, users and management need to understand the capabilities of VoIP so that the investment can be used as a means to achieve the enterprise’s strategic goals. The feature functionality enhancements from the TDM phone environment is significant and with computer telephony integration new applications are being designed daily to integrate an enterprise’s communications with its operating systems.

2. Perform a Current and Future Needs Assessment. Understanding the requirements of the enterprise today and what the requirements might be 5 to 7 years from today will help to select the right solution – ensuring that the current feature and functionality requirements can be met and confirming that the solution is scalable and flexible enough to accommodate the future needs of the enterprise. Some solutions are a lot more modular than others and some offer more industry specific computer telephony integration applications or are more conducive to custom applications that will give an enterprise a significant competitive advantage.

3. Perform a Current Infrastructure Assessment. Our experience at Abilita is that the largest budgetary component of a VoIP implementation that vendors fail to properly inform their

customers about are the costs required to enhance the existing data network so that it can accommodate voice. A full network assessment of the capabilities of the existing data network and what the voice requirements will be must be done. In addition, once deployment is complete ongoing assessments are required because, any time a new application is introduced to the network, capacity must be addressed. A mismatch between an enterprise’s data network capability and the voice system requirements will result in a failed implementation. According to a recent survey done by the Gartner Group 85 percent of existing networks require some form of upgrade to accommodate voice. An Abilita consultant can assist in understanding the complete considerations required in a Network Assessment.

4. Consider Tools and Support Systems that will be used for Network Management Post Implementation. Consistent with the observation that most networks require upgrading to accommodate voice, ongoing network management, software and hardware management, security management and monitoring practices will need to be upgraded as well once voice is added to the network. Once voice is deployed, monitoring the network for all aspects that affect call quality is critical. The support systems that are available are many and they each have their pros and cons. Real time assessments are preferred. Some manufacturers have recently begun to offer system monitoring services as part of their ongoing maintenance packages.

5. Perform Due Diligence on the Vendors Who Are Offering the Solutions Being Considered. VoIP phone system implementations are complex. Accordingly, just like any market vertical, there are vendors who do an excellent job of taking care of their customers and others whose attention wanes once the phone system has been paid for. Vendors should be asked to supply references and those references should be investigated. Enquiries should be made about a vendor’s system design assistance, training efforts, pre-implementation testing practices for quality, cutover hiccups and post implementation care.

6. Plan the Implementation and Then Carry Out the Plan. Once you have determined which solution meets your current and future requirements, what improvements need to be made to your current data network and what ongoing network management practices you will perform, you are ready to plan the implementation. Components of the implementation plan should include phone system design, network (WAN & LAN) upgrades, phone system pre-deployment testing, user training, cutover contingency plans, cutover, post cutover testing (of the phone system and the network), post cutover training, phone system administration training and implementing network management practices. Depending on an enterprise's pre-deployment environment there may be additional considerations that must be addressed during implementation.

7. Maintain Awareness of New VoIP Applications. Unlike the legacy PBX phone systems, VoIP’s open-systems standards, like today’s computing environment, allow for dynamic and continuous application evolvement. Business managers will need to maintain awareness of new VoIP applications that can be integrated into their VoIP deployment to offer additional feature functionality and further improve their business processes. These applications will not be limited to a particular vendor. In fact opportunities for best of breed, multi-vendor environments will exist. The complexity of the networks will undoubtedly increase but those who plan the integration of these enhancements should enjoy a positive return on their investment of time and money.

The Abilita Enterprise Technology Solutions Group (ETS Group) assists financial services clients across North America in planning for, procuring and implementing VoIP technology. To contact the ETS Group please contact Henry Otten at 1.866.657.2848 or hotten@abilita.com .

© Copyright 2006. ETS Group and Abilita, Inc. All Rights Reserved.