It May Not Be Right For You Today, But It Should Be In The Future Firms building green field projects now almost routinely add VoIP capabilities to their data networks. But not as many SMEs are uprooting their working network servers and call centers to enable VoIP in their enterprises.

Why the difference? The ROI that VoIP offers isn't there yet, but it should be in the future. "If I'm starting a green field, I'm going to look long and hard at VoIP, and I believe from where I sit that there is a compelling business case, especially if you have satellite offices and multiple locations," says Chad Holmes of Impact Innovations Group, an IT services firm. "You no longer have to knit together things. There are dedicated solutions out there."

Now is when the IT world should be investigating and learning what VoIP is about, as it will almost inevitably become a mainstream application, says Jeff Snyder, vice president of enterprise communications for Gartner Research. However, that doesn't mean that IT admins or CTOs should jump in if their existing telephony systems are functional, he says.

"People today should be understanding IP telephony. But if none of the vendors can convince you it is going to improve and change your way of doing business and you don't have a compelling need to purchase a new voice server today, then you should not convert your organization to IP telephony," Snyder says. "You should now be understanding and identifying when there will be a reason for you to make a changeover."

Don't Ignore VoIP

Analyst firms tracking VoIP adoption largely maintain that the implementation of VoIP telephony began to largely surpass that of traditional telephone systems last year. According to Distributed Networking Associates, 58% of all enterprises have deployed VoIP in their enterprise. By 2007, 88% of all enterprise voice servers will be IP-capable, Gartner says.

"This means that all of the vendors are devoting their R&D dollars, enhancement requirements, and real innovative work into IP support and are not investing in old, traditional boxes," Snyder says. "This tells you that buying a traditional PBX voice system is the wrong thing to do for the most part. While there are some situations where it might make sense, buying an [old voice system] represents a short-term solution."

One User, One Access

So what can VoIP do for an SME? The leading vendors in the sector, including Avaya, Mitel, Nortel, and Siemens, provide solid offerings and services for VoIP implementation. Setup, of course, usually involves a major and complicated rehaul of at least your enterprise's telephone system and data network. However, a major benefit that SMEs can expect is simple to visualize.

"The one thing that shows up in all of the leading vendors' products is presence awareness, so that you no longer have to make six phone calls to figure out where a person happens to be working. You don't have to call their office, their home office, or their mobile phone," Snyder says. "Or maybe somebody is traveling to Duluth today, so what hotel is he in? As a colleague you simply have to know that you are reaching Alan, push on Alan's name on your directory, and Alan's phone rings wherever he is."

The one-number, one-user contact is but one tool that feeds into the VoIP application, Snyder says. "This is not going to change your world, but if you really want to get a hold of somebody today and you want to make it fast and brainless, then this is an easy way of contacting them," he says.

VoIP in the long term should eventually be folded into the data packets of traditional IP networks. IT and telephony staffs' roles will likely converge, as will security and authentication, Snyder says. "[You will eventually] be able to integrate more of your team together and build more applications that will allow you to tie in centralized database servers with your voice system," Snyder says. "You can also centralize security authentication so that, whether a person accesses the network from a PC or a telephone console, you can determine who they are, what information they have access to, and what form that information should be given to them in, all of which is stored in a central location," Snyder says.

By integrating data and voice servers, a user will thus have the same clearance regardless of whether he or she accesses the network with a data or voice connection. "If somebody else sneaks into your office, they cannot pick up the phone, pretend to be you, and then access the data network," Snyder says. "So having centralized servers is a benefit that will actually improve security while allowing you to improve processes and serve your users better."

Caveat Emptor

IT admins, however, should be cognizant of the fact that VoIP will unlikely save the enterprise money or generate an ROI in the near term. This is why it especially does not make sense to disrupt a working voice system.

The main cost involved is not the VoIP equipment, but the costs of integrating voice into your network, which includes the human costs of training, as well as re-engineering your LAN. "It doesn't take any great intelligence or investment to be able to send voice over your data network, but unfortunately you are going to have a garbage connection," Snyder says. "It will sound like you are on a cell phone in a rural area, where you are barely able to connect with any kind of signal at all."

Getting your network up to speed so that voice connections over a VoIP network are as clear as traditional phones require investments in hardware to ensure that the requisite bandwidth exists, ongoing monitoring of the voice connections, and training of IT staff to manage the differences between voice and data packets, Snyder says.

Your Small Office Lab

Many IT admins know how to make use of a spare room in their house or apartment to use as a testing lab to learn or hone skills. At home, you can apply a new skill set learned from a training course or practice setting up a server or software package that you learned how to do a long time ago but haven't done in a long while. At home, you can make mistakes, and there is often little time pressure to get the job done. The same principle applies to setting up VoIP in a small office.

For many IT admins and CIOs, a small, remote satellite office can serve as a testing ground to see what VoIP can offer your enterprise, how it works, and what the vendor is like. The risks are small compared to having to set up a VoIP system, which is integrated into the entire IT fabric and for which failure and even glitches are not an option.

A small office thus gives you or your IT staff a training ground to see how VoIP can or cannot benefit your enterprise. "With the remote office, most of the savings will come from connectivity and toll charges if there is a lot of traffic between the remote site and the main headquarters," Snyder says. "But it is a low-disruption way of experimenting with a small group of users with probably a limited amount of traffic to understand how it is deployed without disrupting your main office."

by Bruce Gain