Slowly, softly
Covering all of these issues becomes easier with a staggered migration plan that allows ample time to identify and rectify problems, says Dean Vaughan, Asia Pacific business development manager with NCR, which includes VoIP implementation and planning among its range of services.
"Experience in voice is key to a successful implementation," Vaughan says. "Customers recognise convergence is inevitable and are implementing VoIP gradually in preparation for the future. This gives them time to identify hardware and software upgrades required, strategies for training staff, ironing out problems and aiding in acceptance of the new network."
You could do worse than to enlist some automated help. NetIQ, for one, offers a VoIP Manager Suite for assessing the performance of installed VoIP solutions.
The company also recently released Chariot VoIP Assessor, a suite of VoIP readiness assessment tools that guides would-be adopters through the process of evaluating their current network's ability to support the demands of VoIP. This includes stress testing under simulated loads, a critical element of testing that must be run extensively before implementation.
Such testing will rapidly reveal any technological deficiencies that must be addressed before expanding uptake. "There are still hundreds of thousands of man-years of development in switching equipment that have not yet been ported to VoIP," says Greg Bezuidenhout, general manager of sales with Siemens Australia.
"Integration of IP into existing and new platforms is a significant issue, and until such time as we have the same confidence in our data environment, people will still hesitate. But once the user understands the benefit and the reasons for doing it in the first place, there will be an increase in takeup."
By choosing the right approach, VoIP is attainable and poised to deliver very real benefits to most companies. IP functionality is rapidly being added across PABX makers' product lines, and feature sets are expanding all the time.
As PABXes continue to expire, it's well worth a look into this steadily growing technology to see what a migration would entail and what benefits it can provide.
Just remember: always think beyond the call. With customers becoming increasingly comfortable with the concept of a data-only world, it may not be long before VoIP finally fulfils the grandiose expectations its advocates once held.
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