Taking VoIP to the world
Although VoIP has traditionally been targeted at the larger organisations with the IT budgets necessary to fund massive equipment acquisitions, some companies are looking at ways to bundle the technology into lower-cost solutions that are easier to manage and less complex to implement. In this way, they're hoping to kick-start growth by helping small to medium enterprises wake up to the benefits of VoIP.
Recognising that many companies still love circuit-switched voice, Melbourne telephony vendor Tennyson Technologies has taken the middle road by building its SOX small-business PABX around a design that combines support for up to 64 conventional voice lines with ancillary IP-based data functions like fax, unified messaging and voice over IP. Instead of being a replacement for switched circuits, SOX supports up to 16 simultaneous VoIP sessions as a complement to those circuits.
Remote users can take their normal extension with them on the road using PC-based soft phones that emulate a conventional phone but transmit the voice data as IP packets.
Current dial-up modems deliver enough bandwidth to adequately carry a single conversation, and IP-enabled PABXes can automatically forward incoming calls to a VoIP user's computer (as long as they're logged in at the time).
As emerging mobile networks become more practical, constant wireless connectivity will allow workers to have access to their office extensions wherever they happen to be.
This will help the humble notebook PC or PDA assume many of the characteristics of conventional mobile phones. It will also reduce costs by eliminating the need to give travelling employees two separate communications devices.
"For SMEs with up to 50 or 60 extensions, we can provide all the benefits of convergence and CTI without having to put in expensive switching, LAN infrastructure, and so on," says Tennyson director of marketing and support David Turton, who says SOX weighs in around 30 percent cheaper than comparable solutions tacking together several products to match its feature set.
"We're really trying to add a lot of value to existing engineering and solutions that are out in the fields," he explains. "SMEs have a very interesting predicament because technology can really differentiate them from the big boys.
But they're typically not tech savvy, and companies they have to deal with are also sometimes not able to represent these leading technologies effectively. We've focused on delivering tangible benefits through effective CTI, rather than whiz-bang technology behind the scenes."
VoIP also offers major benefits in improving communications with workers at small, remote branch offices with just a few phones. Using VoIP, expensive and unpredictable land lines can be routed back to a larger site by augmenting the data line into that office.
Since more than a few calls at once would be unusual, quality of service concerns can be addressed somewhat more easily than when trying to support a massive number of users.
The technology is equally advantageous for telecommuters, who might live in a different area code or want their office extension to follow them to their home.
For such users, VoIP can be paired with live intranet access over a conventional cable or ADSL broadband link. This approach can reduce costs but, even more beneficially, will help telecommuters seamlessly communicate as if they were at the office.
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