How reliable is business voip?

Brian,

It all depends on what type of business VoIP solution you are using. In my eyes, the most dependable and reliable VoIP solution is going to be a managed solution. Having a provider who is not only providing you voip but also manging a dedicated point to point voice circuit to host your VoIP. Call quality is a big issue with VoIP and it relates directly to your Internet circuit. If you decide to use just 1 circuit for both voice and data, you will see a competition for the bandwidth and if someone happens to open a large media file or host something off of that circuit, there is a good chance that it will affect your call quality.

VoIP over a managed circuit works great for my organization and the customers that we support. We are able to ensure five nines of reliablity becasue we manage our customer's circuits and are able to monitor and fix issues as they occur and before they reach the end user.

I previously provided byob (bring your own bandwidth) solutions to customers and my phone would ring off the hook with support issues concerning call quality. Since moving to my current company, PingTone, I rarely hear of any concerns from customers and have yet to hear problems with call quality.

Understandably, it is going to be an investment to buy a dedicated circuit to host voice on it's own network, but when it comes to your company, is call quality something that you want to have to worry about?

Nandita, can you elaborate more. I can give you the names of well over 1,000 people who would counter your claim. When did you last use it, who was your service provider, did the VoIP provider do anything to look into why you were getting bad quality. This is a very broad and unreasonable answer: "The soup was bad..." Did you tell the chef?

Hi Brian,

VoIP as a technology works totally fine. However, where clients normally go wrong is that they don't look at all of the steps required to move towards a VoIP solution from a traditional service.

So, we need to firstly consider the connectivity platform in terms of suitability. i.e. if a single site or multisite we need to check stats in terms of utilisation and packet loss since VoIP will rely on the connectivity because certain properties need to be in place for every call.

Many clients concentrate on the provider - i.e. which one should I choose without considering that a phone call has to leave a handset, traverse a Local Area Network (number of interfaces), through an edge router, across a circuit of some kind and then through to the VoIP provider. So, even before the VoIP provider comes into play, the call may not be of sufficient quality.

Secondly we need to document current features in order to be able to ensure any prospective supplier is suitable.

An audit of existing circuits (ISDN and PSTN) is advisable - do you have alarm systems and fax machines. Certain providers do not support fax very well so if a high percentage of your calls are over FAX then this needs to be considered.

In terms of hardware, you may consider a Cisco, Mitel, Avaya etc etc type of gateway on site or a hosted solution where you only have handsets. There are also other ways of deploying VoIP using gateways which would interface with a legacy PBX and convert the traffic to VoIP from TDM.

The most important aspect is to do your research on the VoIP provider to check the locations of their hardware to establish whether they run resilient pairs and what service levels they provide. I would never recommend designing a solution based on service levels but it's a good indicator of their general ability.

When you've considered the above, a provider should be able to provide a trial or interoperability test so you can make some calls.

The last points i would make are not to just consider a provider from a technical ability perspective. Also consider their order processes - if it takes a week to add an additional trunk or feature this may rule them out since your business may require a quicker level of service.

Hope this helps. Hannah.

PS - check out www.thetelecast.net as there's a three part series on SIP trunking which may help.

VOIP is as reliable as the speed and available bandwidth of the circuit allows. PRI delivered over a T1 or similar is a proven, reliable method of IP delivery. Multiple channels of voice delivered over a DSL connection is usually a recipe for failure. SIP trunks delivered over a high-speed connection in an MPLS environment is highly reliable, provides QOS and can be very cost competitive compared to a PRI.

Brian,

In 2010, business VoIP as a technology is 100% reliable.

Each implementation, however, is dependent on many factors, such as the clients network, the ISP, and the implementation plan. VoIP is not a product, it's a solution. So it should not be evaluated on if it works as a concept, because it does.

As many of the previous respondents has pointed out, the specifics of the implementation will make all the difference in the world.

VoIP without Quality of Service (QoS) is hideous...

-ASB: http://xeesm.com/AndrewBaker

I couldn't agree more with Dave. We have probably helped close to 100 clients research, procure and implement VoIP phone systems, both hosted and premise-based. When they are done correctly by the supplier (which happens more now that we have garnered enough experience to offer assistance), VoIP is very solid. It offer more features and better price points than traditional TDM. VoIP is definitely commercial grade if done correctly.

I answered something similar on LinkedIn a while back so here is a re-hash:

I'll give you the perspective from a manage VoIP provider perspective who manages "cloud-based" phone systems and customer premise PBX's

Unless the company has a robust and stable network the odds of them liking ANY VoIP based phone system is unlikely. The problem with most small businesses renting out VoIP based services over a managed service provider is, they have cruddy networks.

By cruddy networks I mean, they will often have lousy ISP's, subpar equipment (switches, networks) and they won't have figured out how to properly allocate network based resources. I have a client with an office of between 15-25 associates. They have a T1 and they have now have a cable provider. Prior to the cable provider, the minute two staffers hopped on YouTube, the bandwidth became saturated and their calls went downhill for them. I performed an in-house test to show them what was occurring and they immediately forked out the cash for a separate data connection as to not dis-affect their phone system.

Equipment plays a big part as well. You can't expect subpar wiring, switches or improperly configured equipment to yield you good quality calls. For example, if the small business has something like a Linksys, DLink or other "soho/home based" network, then the chances are, those devices need to be properly configured to allow SIP and VoIP as most of those devices have internal firewalls otherwise there will be issues with the call quality.

On the cost savings, VoIP is phenomenal when deployed correctly. On the downside, when a client has a horrible network, they'll often face a multitude of issues that they'll often try to heap on the provider; "Your service sucks, I hear echo, my phones disconnect from time to time... I can't even get to the Internet!" ... Guess what, no Internet, no SIP no VoIP period. I've seen companies with cable connections (not business cable) have horrible times, yet when they swapped over to business cable, different story.

Another issue is that clients almost always attribute an Internet Service Provider outage to the VoIP carrier. They need to understand fully what is VoIP, how it works, and why they need to implement it properly. On a daily basis I have access to about 4000+ managed phones on all walks of systems/networks. I post this from experience, from configuring the systems to overhauling entire networks, to properly designing systems, networks and the security behind them.

VoIP based systems are as robust as the network they're on. No more no less. The equipment to push VoIP is very mature in fact, most PSTN carriers use VoIP in the mix nowadays where most people wouldn't even know it.

Brian,
I have used VOIP for Business purposes in past & I would not recommend it. You cannot trust the call quality at all times. I am saying this out of my experience as many a times my calls got disconneted at those critical points where I was in discussion with my clients.

I have learnt it the hard way!

Good luck!

Nandita Saxena
n.saxena1978@gmail.com

http://ca.linkedin.com/in/manageditservices

Well, timing really IS everything -- I've just published a Focus Brief discussing "enterprise-class," "business-ready" hosted VoIP and featuring PingTone, a supplier focused specifically on this set of challenges. You can read my Brief at http://bit.ly/b24iZq -- comments welcome!

Brian

Preparing an SME or an enterprise client for VoIP communications should be considered on a case by case basis as to how that deployment would installed and managed. Each company's corporate culture, network equipment, WAN depolyment, internal IT resources, carrier agreements, etc all need to be considered when discussing VoIP as an option for any entity.

VoIP deployments require customer to properly perform a network assessment of their LAN / WAN as part of any proper deployment - down to and including Layer 1 cable infrastructure testing, -in order to avoid the pitfalls experienced by many entities. Research your solutions as well as your solution providers carefully. My company has deployed hundreds of solutions for our clients with great success. Some deployments we have done for customers that have close to 100 individual sites all networked together for a single ubiquitous system.

With respect to managed services provided by carriers you need to do your research there carefully as well. Make sure that when they give you referrals, you call them directly and speak to them about their deployment, management by the carrier of the deployment itself, as well as issues they experienced during the cutover - and after. No cutover goes without any hitches whatsoever so make sure you can identify what issues occurred, how they were resolved, and how timely was the resolution. Also look to speak to companies that have deployed this solution for a much larger site than your own. if you are an SME user, you would want to speak with entities that are larger to see how they were handled by the carrier as well.

VoIP can and is a terrific solution as long as you familiarize yourself with how to deploy it and who you pick as your partners to assist you in that process. Best of luck to you.

Hi Brian

I'm sorry to say this But there is only one company i believe that does the connections, managements etc for Voip in a sufficient way and that my friend would be Forbtech.

If you need more info please do not hesitate to contact me

We use VoIP via SIP Providers on a daily basis ourselves without any problems. And we host a helpdesk, so...
Most customers are reluctant in moving over to SIP calling. So we advise them to initilally keep their incoming calls over ISDN and outgoing over SIP Trunk. Most of them ask us after a couple of months to move them over to the SIp trunk all together.

Of course one thing is key in this story: QoS
If you don't plan QoS decently you're a goner. Most routers allow for traffic prioritization which most of the time is, unfortunately, not enough.
For that reason we use a router that allows bandwith reservation per call. And that works marvelously.
You just need to keep in mind your maximal uplod bandwith of course. But using G729 you can already get quite some calls over a 512Kb upload (roughly 12-13 simultaneous calls).

Call quality has to do with QoS not with more bandwidth or fast speed Internet. Well, at least for enterprises running VoIP on SIP trunking over an MPLS. In addition, you still need to have the LAN and WAN infrastructure required to support QoS.

Call quality is - nearly 100% of the time - adversely affected by the ISP and the customer's own networking equipment not being setup correctly.

A simple example would be to say that VoIP is like a Cadillac's smooth ride, but when driven on a highway full of pot holes and old, cracked foundation, is not going to offer the best of what the Cadillac can provide.

VoIP in the proper conditions is flawless in terms of quality. And it's not the VoIP provider's primary business to manage the customer's network (well, some providers are doing both).

As a vendor of hosted VoIP, I sometimes feel like we're being asked to provide a gourmet experience in an inferior kitchen. The infrastructure needs to be up to snuff - if it is, VoIP rules like non other. Have you heard HD Voice ? It's incredibly clear.

VoIP dependability depends on a few factors:
1. Quality of the in-house network, its reliability, stability, configuration, and management.
a. A network that cannot deliver consistent stable applications, will not deliver a stable phone call (VoIP is an application).
b. The staff that supports this network must also be high caliber and capable of troubleshooting the most difficult network problems. This staff must have a lot of experience, training, knowledge, and tools.
2. Next, the company must have a staff (or a consultant) that has experience in managing a telephone system. This is not your home skype system. This staff must know about hunt groups, redirects, the difference between a DID and a telephone number, different protocols such as g.711, etc. It helps if this staff has some fundamental network experience also.
3. The connection to the Telco. There are basically two ways to connect to a PSTN: a traditional PRI circuit, and through the. If this connection has issues, your phone system cannot get or receive telephone calls outside of the business network.
All of the above must be in place to manage a stable and robust VoIP system. If one of the above is missing, the VoIP system will have multiple problems.
I currently run a VoIP network with over 400 devices (telephones, call center, fax machines, integrated voice-mail and e-mail, and it works well. We did have some issues at the beginning, but we have a network staff and telephone staff that work well together. The network design is robust, and network issues are very rare.
For stability, we decided to use PRI circuits to connect to the PSTN, and given the problems we have had with our Internet provider lately, I’m very happy we made that decision.
Our parent company, just converted to VoIP and their 12,000 telephones are running well. Even large companies can run a VoIP system, but expect to pay for the experience needed to run a system such as this.

There are two aspects to this. The first would be the IP telephone system and the second would be IP trunking. There are many reliable IP systems out there that offer outstanding features and applications and are reliable. ShoreTel for one has a documented 99.999% uptime. IP systems with ISDN-PRI or T1 circuits as a general rule have very few problems. IP trunking on the other hand, be it hosted or connected to on premise equipment is much less reliable and this is where you see most of the complaints. Best uptime I have seen for these services is 99% which is less than what companies are used from the PSTN. Where the problems seem to be is in how reliable the data circuit is, whether the service is deliverd over a closed system as opposed to pure internet and the fact that you have a single point of failure for the service unless you have duplicate circuits, which doubles your cost.

Finally make sure whoever is supporting your internal network understands that almost anything that they do to the router/network can disrupt the voice traffic. We had a customer that was withoput voice communications for almost a week because their IT support company kept making changes to the router and did not check to see if the changes would affect anything else. Very few IT consultant/service providers understand VoIP and can cause the most problems.

At Bandwidth.com, our network features automatic failover and geo-redundancy, which routes your calls to another point of presence if the nearest facility is down for any reason. That means your calls get through, and your customers can reach you at the most critical of times.

Bandwidth.com can provide a customer with a fully-managed QoS router that is placed on the customer premise. This QoS router has a robust set of QoS mechanisms it can employ to identify voice traffic (inbound or outbound) and ensure that the required amount of bandwidth is made available. During times of potential congestion (i.e. when utilization levels over a circuit approach
70%), the QoS mechanisms are initiated.

Contact me if you would like a more detailed presentation of Bandwidth.com's QoS.

The simple answer is that it is reliable when done right and disasterous when done wrong. A specific answer needs to tailor your requirements which need to be stated.