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Does VoIP Really Matter Beyond Lower Costs?
Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) telephony has attracted many business and consumer users, largely for one reason -- it's cheap, bordering on free in the case of well-known offerings such as Skype and Magic Jack. And many business users have found the cost savings sufficiently compelling to tolerate occasional inconsistencies in call quality and service availability. But because VoIP traffic is essentially computer data, it can be integrated with other communications streams as a path toward unified communications (UC), and with solutions used to manage and even provision network resources. So is your organization achieving or pursuing VoIP benefits beyond cost reduction? If so, how, and how well are those efforts working? If not, why not?
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5 Answers
One of the professionals I communicate with regularly, a patent attorney, just discovered Skype because he wants to stay in touch with his freshman daughter. In our first conversation we discussed the "free" part as well as the "call quality" issue. But then I sent him a link to an Aviation Week article and he exclaimed: "Wow! You cannot do that with a regular phone!".
I conducted a video interview with an Estonian sys admin who had been in the thick of things in the April '07 Russian cyber attacks. It gave him confidence in my identity to be able to see me.
Voip is most powerful for the integration of data and video and soon to come: applications. The cost savings is a marginal (literally) benefit.
It is disappointing that many IT managers feel that the big advantage to VoIP is cost savings. This is rarely the case. Through many various forms of voice and data integration (applications that can directly improve employee efficiency and customer relationships), convergence will one day prove to be a "no-brainer". Remember when Mainframe folks ignored the PC networks springing up all over the company? Could you even imagine separate networks today? Voice/Data convergence will bring even greater business benefits, and we will wonder how we ever did it the old TDM way.
I am currently running VoIP on our network for 4 offices in 4 diffrent cities with 45 phones. It has its upsides as well as its downsides. There a some hidden costs involved. I would gladly discuss this matter more with anyone. You can email me directly at smccallister@bdi-insurance.com.
Could this be helpful in a doctors office with 5 phone lines?
Please suggest. Our phone lines rolls over i.e our customers only gets one phone number and when they call that line it rolles over automatic if it is busy to the following lines.
mine is more of a question. are any hidden problems cropping up in regard to voip over wifi
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