These days every enterprise or small company is looking at Voice Over IP (VoIP) in some way, shape or form. The problem is that VoIP vendors’ wares are so different, and their pitches so attractive, that it’s often easy to forget the underlying principles of cost vs. benefit. At the end of the day, the last thing enterprises need to be doing is choosing VoIP as a „strategic move“ (i.e.: marketing speak for „because there’s no compelling reason“).

In this article we’ll dissect some of the trends in VoIP, as well as providing some solid reasons why it may work for your enterprise, and why it may not. Ultimately the decision will be up to you and your chosen VoIP company to mesh your services in such a way that you are able to provide solid Quality of Service (QoS – i.e.: good connectivity) as well as actually reducing your overall telephony and communications costs. And hey if you can throw in some added features while you’re at it – without increasing your costs and losing money – fantastic.

Before You Enter the Fray

As with any large infrastructure redefining project, the first thing to do before even bringing in vendors is to determine your requirements. More than most projects, VoIP vendors will often try and sell you their product instead of trying to find your solution. The reason for this isn’t underhanded salesmanship. The harsh reality is that because VoIP is so new, and vendors’ offerings can sometimes be overly flexible, it’s easier for them to propose something and then work with you to refine that.

As a result, if you don’t know what you want, you will simply „ride the wave“ of the sales pitch, picking out what sounds good. And what sounds good may not be what your company needs.

Great VoIP

Ultimately, you need to decide what’s right for you. VoIP’s core benefits boil down to:

1. Lower (hopefully) Cost of Ownership
2. Free calling between facilities
3. Reduced support needs for telephony systems
4. Extended digital features
5. Enterprise-class reporting, analytics and other tools

For most companies, these benefits are what they are looking for, and generally in that order. They want to lower the expensive costs of their phone systems – often this is done through that rarely used practice of working with your local Telco because you weren’t taking advantage of their full line of services; they want to reduce long distance costs; they want to reduce the cost or improve the quality of their telephony support and then they are looking for a little icing on the side to help sell the new project to management, outside sales staff, etc.

More often than not, VoIP does deliver these benefits – as long as companies put in the legwork ahead of time to make sure the package, company and architecture will work for them.

Watch That First Step

That said, there are some key things to watch out for with VoIP. More than anything these boil down to expectations within your company. VoIP is a mature technology, but it is still growing and, as a result, there are some differences you need to be aware of: differences between normal telephony and VoIP that your vendor may not be informing you of.

There are also some common pitfalls to be aware of in the process.

Quality of Service: A term you will hear more than you want to while you are shopping for your vendor, picking out your package and installing and testing your new system is „QoS“, or Quality of Service. QoS is a complicated thing, but it boils down to the fact that you are trying to provide multiple services – over one line – and that you’re expecting excellent performance for all of your services – over one line. As part of your planning you will need to figure out which services are most important and prioritize every service that is happening over your data network, something many companies aren’t prepared to do (i.e.: „the Internet can’t go down“, „the phone system can’t go down“, „faxes must be good quality“ … ). Determine your QoS priorities, set metrics, and ensure your system stays within your boundaries.

Lack of Signal: With a normal phone system, you pick up the phone and you get a dial tone. With VoIP… Sometimes you don’t. Sometimes you pick it up and there simply wasn’t a connection. The simplest process is to try again.

Single Point of Failure: How often does your corporate network, or email, or external internet access go down? Every time this happens, you are likely to encounter a knock-on effect with VoIP – at least if you use the same data lines and network resources, which isn’t a requirement by the way. You are going to find that your phone system is also down. As soon as you mesh resources to „leverage existing infrastructure“, that infrastructure becomes more critical as well, and any issues with that infrastructure become more pronounced. In effect, network issues become just as important as power issues: your company can’t function properly while something is amiss.

Vendor / Architectural Lockin: Because VoIP is so new, you want to ensure that you are going to use industry standard protocols, processes, software and services so that if you need to you can switch vendors, upgrade the system to a newer standard or take advantage of add-on services from other vendors. There is nothing worse than installing a massive new phone system only to find out that you can’t do anything useful with it for 20 years. Be careful in your choice of platform, protocol, standard, vendor and system: you’ll appreciate it when you want to make a change.

Beware the Icing (added services = added dollars)

Finally, the last thing you need to beware of is the „icing“. As with all vendors, the last step in any deal is to try and sell you extra services. The problem with VoIP is that many of these services are incredibly attractive. The ability to send and receive faxes from your email and from your phone, is something many executives drool over.

However, this icing is what may make VoIP more expensive than you were anticipating, and may leave your company more vulnerable than when the project started. The key is balance. Remember your goals, and measure whether each added service is something that is actually worth the long term cost to you and your business.

Is it All Worthwhile?

The question everyone asks: Is VoIP really worth doing? The short answer is „probably, at some point“. The reality is that VoIP will become the new way to do business. PBX style systems will eventually become a thing of the past, and digital calling will be the standard. Already, more than 30% of calls worldwide are made via digital networks: cell phone networks.

If your company is spending serious money on long distance, particularly between offices or between select clients, VoIP is almost certainly for you right now. If your company has a solid network infrastructure, an antiquated phone system or you do truly need certain cutting edge services, VoIP is something you definitely want to look at.

However, if your company is merely looking at VoIP as a long term strategic move, you will want to be more cautious. Set out your current telephony costs so you know how much you can spend on a month-to-month basis. Figure out what services you are receiving right now for that cost. And then see if a similar VoIP system will save you money: because you don’t know until you try.

The VoIP world is an exciting one, with some incredible innovations happening on a daily basis. But, at the end of the day you need to decide if VoIP is right for you. It will be one day, but maybe today isn’t that day.

Author: Jeremy C. Wright, Staff Writer

It is likely that almost all computer users are familiar with email, and probably instant messaging as well. In a matter of a few years, the Internet has completely changed the way we communicate with each other, with one exception, the Telephone.

Nothing has yet replaced the ritual of picking up the phone and dialing a number to have a conversation, and it’s unlikely that anything ever will replace voice communication the way that email has erased hand written letters. However, the Internet does provide possibilities for making the calling process more flexible, and most importantly, more affordable.

Today we are going to look at Skype, an Internet Phone application currently going through a free beta-test, and generating a lot of buzz. We’ll also examine how Internet telephony works, and why you should care. It’s been said that Internet based voice calling will replace traditional telephone networks, the only question being how long it will take. Skype could be one of the applications that make this a reality.

VoIP crash course

Voice Over IP is the process of transmitting voice communications, like phone conversations, over an IP based network like the Internet. It uses IP addresses instead of phone numbers, and Ethernet cable in place of phone wire. VoIP can performed by an application like Skype, or a device like an IP phone.

The major difference between IP based voice communication and the telephone network we are all accustomed to using is the method of sending data. Both methods convert sound to electrical signals (data) and send it over a network to the recipient, where it is converted back. The networks they are sending data over are vastly different, however.

A Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN), our standard phone system, forms a circuit between the caller and the callee which stays connected for the duration of the call. IP calling uses the Internet, a packet-based network. This means that data is transferred in discrete packets which are sent from source to destination independently and assembled when they get there. This is more efficient and much less subject to distance issues than a PSTN. This is half the reason why VoIP calls are so much cheaper than PSTN calls. The other half is the fact that the Internet is more or less globally maintained, whereas phone systems are implemented and maintained by individual governments and corporations. So while you and your phone company need to pay for the right to use a remote phone system to connect, there is no such need on the Internet. Once you are on it, you can send data without restriction or cost.

So free phone calls for everyone right?

Hold on a sec. VoIP programs like Skype have the run of the Internet, and no one is trying to charge long distance rates for that (at least not yet), but there’s a bit of a snag when it comes to regular phones. See, regular phones are connected to regular phone lines which are administered by regular phone companies who would like regular payment for their services, thank you very much.

Understandably, the company you pay for your telephone access is not overly keen on the idea of you being able to dial up anyone, anywhere in the world, for free. They don’t have much to worry about though… In order to bridge a call started on the Internet (via a VoIP application or phone) through to PSTN (Public Switched Telephone Network) phone, a special connection device is needed to bridge the gap between the packet-based Internet and the circuit-based telephone network.

The VoIP Gateway is a device that connects and translates the Internet and a regulation phone line. A user makes a local phone call or a VoIP call to the gateway, which then transfers the call over the Internet to a second gateway which dumps it back onto the regular phone system at that location.

In this way, long distance charges can be circumvented, and regular phones used to call computer systems and vice versa. However, while these VoIP Gateways are available, they are not yet at a cost or a simplicity that would make them desirable for home users. Also, in order to use them effectively, you need a gateway at every location you intend to call regular phones at. This is expensive and complicated, which explains why full global VoIP calling is still the domain of major corporations and institutions that can afford the initial expenditure required to set up a VoIP network.

VoIP is becoming more common internally, within large institutions like college campuses. There it provides an effective means of communicating within the campus grounds, requiring only an interface to the regular telephone system to ensure that any calls out are transferred to that network.

To sum up, things get complicated when you start thinking about calling from your computer to someone else’s phone. As long as you keep things strictly Internet-based though, there’s no extra cost incurred, paving the way for services like Skype.

More @ source link.

Using your computer and Internet connection to make local and long distance calls has been getting a lot of attention lately. People are enticed by the savings offered by Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) and the ability to use a regular telephone. Before you jump on the bandwagon, consider the drawbacks.

Most VoIP providers charge a monthly fee of $20 to $30 for unlimited local and long distance calling anywhere in the U.S., and sometimes Canada. You also receive a host of features that would normally cost extra, such as call forwarding, voice mail, caller ID and call waiting.

There are enhanced features, too. Many providers will forward your voice mail to an e-mail account. There is a super version of call-forwarding that forwards calls to five or so different phones. It will ring them one at a time or all five simultaneously.

Although VoIP is still in its infancy, there are a number of companies providing service, such as AT&T, ([ >>> ] Packet8 ([ >>> ] VoicePulse ([ >>> ] and Vonage ([ >>> ] The quality is better than a cell phone and often matches traditional phone service. But there is a potential for dropouts similar to a cell phone.

To get started, you’ll need a broadband connection such as cable or DSL. That’s because your voice is translated into data and takes up some bandwidth.

You can talk on the phone while using the Internet. To do that, you’ll need a router. Both the computer and the phone connect to the router. This is no different than networking two or more computers.

The telephone connects to the Internet with an adapter. That is provided for free or a nominal fee by the VoIP provider. The whole thing is not as simple as plugging a phone into a jack, but it’s fairly painless.

If you’ve had the same phone number for 20 years, you probably can keep it. But the process for switching over can take days or, sometimes, weeks. During the transition, you may have two telephones, one connected to the Internet and the other the traditional service. You can make outbound calls on the Internet, but inbound calls will come over the traditional service.

Signing up with a new number has advantages. Most service providers allow you to choose any area code, as long as they have local service there. This way, you can use the area code you live in for your main number and add a second phone number with a different area code for a nominal fee (about $5). This second phone number would ring on the same phone. If you live in Seattle but most of your friends and family live in Chicago, they can call you for free.

With all of these advantages, there are some serious drawbacks.

Setting up extension phones is difficult. You can connect a cordless telephone to the adapter and then purchase expansion handsets (about $70 each) for use in other rooms. Or, if you want to continue using the phone jacks installed in your house, you can hire an electrician to do some rewiring. Either way, it’s an extra expense.

In many cases, Internet connections to 911 are difficult or impossible. You may have to dial the police or fire departments directly.

Also, your home alarm system, TiVo, DirecTV and any other household item that uses a traditional telephone connection might not work. And, if your broadband connection fails or you have a power outage, you will have no telephone service.

Nonetheless, VoIP offers some real benefits. If you spend a lot of time on long distance, for instance, and can accept its shortcomings, you can save money.

In a move to stave off competitors, SBC Communications Inc. will offer residential Voice over Internet service in early 2005.

Voice over Internet -- VoIP, Voice over Internet Protocol -- turns voice telephone conversations into digital elements, transmits them over the Internet to the party dialed. This avoids traditional long distance telephone charges. A growing number of people are opting for VoIP service from alternative providers, which along with use of cell phones is eroding the traditional long distance revenue source for phone companies.

SBC has been testing its VoIP service with about 1,000 customers in Los Angeles, Dallas, Chicago and San Antonio, said Bridget Stachowski, an SBC spokeswoman in San Francisco.

The SBC VoIP service will have features such as «find me» and «do not disturb,» giving customers the ability to specify which numbers can ring through, as well as a click-to-call capability that lets customers call friends and family with the click of a mouse, Stachowski said. The service will also have popular telephone features: voice mail, call forwarding, call waiting, caller ID and three-way calling.

Randall Stephenson, SBC chief operating officer, said in a statement: «Over time, we expect that VoIP will be a preferred voice service because of the features and benefits this technology enables.»

Stachowski agreed there is little advantage for telephone users making a free, local call. SBC residential phone customers who have both VoIP and traditional phone service will benefit from lower long distance charges using the VoIP. In a power failure, or if the home computer isn’t working, the traditional telephone can be used, she said.

And, the emergency 911 system can only locate a caller on a traditional telephone line. Details and cost of the service has yet to be determined.

Earlier, SBC and Microsoft Corp. inked a $400 million, 10-year deal that gives Microsoft a sought-after foothold in television technology. SBC is spending $4 billion to replace copper cables with fiber optics. This will give its Internet customers faster connections, and in the Microsoft deal, allow it to transmit television services like video on demand, picture-in-picture viewing and digital video recording, as well as new features such as Caller ID and instant messaging on the TV screen or alerts when desired programs are about to air.

When Cox Roanoke speaksor, in industry terms, launches a new productthe rest of the company listens. Roanoke’s manageable size makes it a favorite testing ground for corporate, which turned to it yet again for the launch of VoIP phone service.

By Shirley Brady

When Marilyn Humphrey started at Cox’s Roanoke, Va., system as its new general manager last January, she was joining a team that was in the throes of launching a critical new product: VoIP telephone service.

«It was something of a moving train by the time I arrived, and it was a matter of making sure it stays on the tracks,» she recalls. «The beta test had started in October 2003, so a lot of the initial operating issues had been worked through and the really tough decisions about whether we were ready for prime time and ready to launch had [already] been made.»

Humphrey was tapped for her cable and telecom experiencea valuable mix when it came to managing the launchpad for Cox’s VoIP product. But she credits Roger Baiers, VP for Cox Business Services in Roanoke, for the trust Cox corporate in Atlanta placed in the Roanoke system’s ability to launch one of its most important services. She also credits Baiers for swiftly turning the trial into a local success story.



«We are one of the smaller Cox systems, so Roger wears about three hats,» says Humphrey. «He has responsibility for the Cox Business Services organization, for network engineeringeverything from our head-end to the guys making sure fiber’s up and running properlyand for overseeing our VoIP launch, which also meant getting everyone here as knowledgeable as possible about every aspect of this new product.»



«We just happen to have been fortunate to have been selected as the site launch for the company,» says Baiers. «We had a lot of help from our folks in Atlanta, and a lot of calls to make sure we were ready and we were all on the same page.»



The Nod From Corporate



The Roanoke system «had telephony expertise in-house, not just me,» says Baiers, who worked for the incumbent local exchange carrier for 26 years before joining Cox. «This location had been doing CAP [competitive access provider services] and quasi-CLEC [competitive local exchange carrier] business…so we had to go outside to hire very few people.»



Other factors that led to the selection of the Roanoke system as Cox’s VoIP leader: it was among the first of Cox’s systems to launch high-speed Internet; it had a fully upgraded plant; and its relative smallness meant a test would be manageable and scalable, so VoIP wouldn’t have to launch node by node, as would happen in a larger market, but across the entire system. «It’s not like launching in a San Diego or a Hampton Roads,» Baiers says.



Besides engaging its VoIP vendors (Cisco for the backbone plus Scientific-Atlanta, Nuera, Fujitsu, VeriSign and others), the system had to decide which resources would be local, which would come from Atlanta, and whether its soft switch would be local or based in the regional operations center in Hampton Roads. «We had to set up process flows and procedures between the three locations that would make the customer experience seamless,» Baiers says.



On the customer service side, Roanoke had to learn how to sell a phone product. «[For instance,] what are the hold times associated with processing a new phone customer?» Baiers says. «We heard horror stories from some of our other systems that you need to allow 45 minutes to take a phone order. Well, we’ve found it’s only 20 or 25 minutes.»



Humphrey and her team sought advice from sister markets that already had launched circuit-switch telephony, a non-IP based service marketed as Cox Digital Phone. «Omaha was the first Cox system to launch [that product] so we always look to them,» she says. «What have their promotions been? What did they learn as they went from relatively low penetration to extremely high penetration rates? And how will we evolve over time?»



Roanoke’s VoIP service will be sold as Cox Digital Telephone, a company-proven brand name that Humphrey believes distinguishes it from «extremely aggressive» competitors vying for Cox’s high-speed Internet, video and now phone customers. Dish Network launched a local channel last year; 10.6% of Roanoke homes passed by Cox subscribe to satellite, according to Media Business Corp. estimates.



Selling «Cox,» Not «VoIP»



«On the marketing, new product packaging and positioning standpoint the Cox Digital Phone brand is of huge value,» says Humphrey. «Our experience here with phone service is absolutely the same as it’s been in other [Cox] circuit-switch markets. The penetration rates occurred just as quickly, customers adopt it just as quickly, they’re just as satisfiedthere just is not that much difference from a deployment standpoint. So it has become the model, and Cox has made the decision to quietly expand deploying [VoIP] service to other markets.»

There’s still some confusion between Cox’s service and the VoIP services that are Internet-based, like Vonage or AT&T. «But it’s just not that interesting to customers to have to figure out that difference, which is why from our customers’ perspective here in Roanoke we don’t even talk about this as a VoIP service,» Humphrey says.

Even before the marketing efforts started in June, the competition started sharpening its knives. «Verizon did come out with a very aggressive campaign on their bundled, unlimited long-distance phone service with the high-speed data product for $79.99,» says Humphrey. «They were running full-page ads, so until we were able to launch our full-blown marketing efforts that was frustrating to watch, because we could just see our market evaporating.»

Since then, the Roanoke team has stayed focused on getting the word out. «The challenge has not just been keeping our message out there, but keeping it simple enough that customers believe it’s worth calling us to ask about the service,» she says. «All our research shows that people don’t care about the technology of the productit’s the benefits of the product. And that’s our advantage.»



Three Simple Phone Packages



With the next phase of Cox’s VoIP rolloutincluding a launch in Tulsa, Okla., Baton Rouge, La., west Texas and southwest Louisianastarting this fall, Humphrey is loathe to divulge results from her launch for companywide competitive reasons. Using insights gleaned from other Cox systems, Roanoke tested different price points for VoIP before settling on the final three-package lineup that launched to customers June 1, when the system started the all-out marketing efforts for the product, she adds.



The packages are straightforward. «Connection Unlimited» offers unlimited long-distance and nationwide minutes plus local service for $49.95 a month. «Connection 60» offers the same set of 14 features plus voicemail, but only 60 long-distance minutes, and costs $34.90. «Basic Line» costs $12.20 for existing Cox customers, who must pay extra for features such as voicemail ($4.95) or caller ID ($7.40). Basic Line subscribers not taking any other Cox services pay $13.59 per month.



As with all of Cox’s pricing, the deals are better for bundled phone customers, who save $10 each month on their Cox phone bill by also taking video and Internet services, or $5 a month for subscribing to just one of them. A current promotion shaves 50% off either Connection phone package for three months, including free installation.



Next Up: Business Phone Service



Although Roanoke recently introduced DVR service and last year launched high-definition TV channels, the focus is on picking up the phone biz. Next up: launching a commercial VoIP-based solution to Cox Business Service customers this fallanother company first.

«We’re in beta for that through the end of October and in November/December,» says Baiers. Cox will position it much like it did residential: small business bundles with data, video and voice. «We won’t launch larger business voice service until phase two, likely first quarter next year, which depends on devices that are yet to be manufactured and approved by Cox. [This will] go into universities, large businesses, call centers and the like. We’re working with the vendors so they’re making what we need.

»We’re still moderately limited by the hardware and gear that the vendors have for us," he adds. «We have some vendors that we’re testing, but for now we’re capping our offering at 16 lines or less.»

The Roanoke team is keeping a close eye on other phone services, such as wireless. «We’re definitely interested and watching, although that’s a question for Cox in Atlanta,» says Humphrey. «Verizon just came out with an integrated product that crosses wired and wireless boundaries, and of course that’s something that competitively we have to look at.»

That said, Humphrey understands that Cox Roanoke can’t tackle everything at the same time. «With [commercial VoIP] launching and residential VoIP under way, we’re really focused on this phone product and doing it right,» she says. «[This] was a launch year with a tremendous amount of technical learnings, operational learnings and new methods and procedures; 2005 and beyond is when we show the company how the promises will be kept with the same kind of market results that have been experienced in circuit-switch markets.»

SYRACUSE, NY (Business Wire) Leading Voice Services Provider Leverages VoIP Network Success to Offer Turnkey Broadband Telephony for Carriers, Businesses and Residential Customers

USA Datanet Corporation, a Syracuse, NY-based provider of long distance voice, Internet access and enhanced communications services to over 480,000 residential and small business customers nationwide, today announced a comprehensive portfolio of broadband telephony products and services for residential, commercial and wholesale markets. USA Datanet is unveiling its SIP-based VoIP telephony services — delivered directly to residential and business customers as well as to other service providers on a wholesale, private-label basis — at the Fall VON Show in Boston, MA October 18th — 21st.

USA Datanet brings a uniquely balanced set of capabilities to an emerging marketplace in which the early contenders -- a group of relatively small, pure-play VoIP technology start-ups on one side and a number of large, well-established incumbent service providers on the other — force customers to choose between the benefits of the latest technology and the proven service of an experienced provider. As the successful operator of a proprietary SIP-based VoIP network that already serves close to half a million subscribers, USA Datanet offers the best of both worlds — combining the technology, features and focus of a VoIP pioneer with the operating experience and service of an established provider.

«As a leader in the development, deployment and operation of an advanced, software-driven VoIP network, USA Datanet is extremely well positioned to deliver on the true promise of broadband telephony with an impressive suite of full-featured products and services,» said USA Datanet president and CEO, David Montanaro. «Backed by our in-house customer service operation and our all-encompassing pricing structure, USA Datanet’s broadband telephony represents an excellent value to residential and business customers looking for advanced, high quality communications services as well as to ILECs, CLECs, ISPs and other carriers seeking a proven, architecturally sound broadband telephony solution.»

Broadband Telephony Products and Services

USA Datanet’s VoIP broadband telephony is being delivered to the national market in a two-pronged approach. Residential service — already up and running for selected customers -- will be available nationwide this Fall, while commercial and wholesale VoIP network services are available now through USA Datanet’s IP Network Solutions Group. Subscribers to USA Datanet’s broadband telephony products and services will be able to make IP-originated calls to other IP phones or to any phone on the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN), and receive calls through a PSTN-provisioned phone number.

Residential Broadband Telephony

USA Datanet’s residential broadband telephony customers enjoy a wealth of features, including caller ID, call waiting, 3-way calling, voice mail, voice mail to email notification, call forwarding, call hunting, call blocking, number portability, return call (*69), anonymous call rejection, call retrieve, call notify, call park, call transfer, selective call acceptance and many more. In keeping with the company’s tradition of non-nonsense pricing, USA Datanet’s residential customers can enjoy unlimited local and long distance calling for a flat rate of under $25 per month. Emergency 9–1-1 services will be available to all subscribers.

The enhanced call control platform that USA Datanet uses to deliver this extensive list of calling capabilities also provides a level of applications portability and integrated control that few VoIP competitors can match, such as Web portal management, Web-based voice mail, voice portal, voice dialing and a Personal Information Manager that integrates speech recognition capabilities over the Web. The company intends to leverage the unique power of this platform to bring to market a number of innovative, customer-focused concepts as well, including zero touch fulfillment, device and access agnostic services, virtual agent, and always on voice. Visit www.usadatanet.com for details on the full array of current features and plans for upcoming new broadband telephony applications.

IP Network Solutions

This comprehensive package of broadband telephony products and services is also being made available on a wholesale basis to carriers, CLECs, ILECs, ISPs and other service providers looking for a quick, reliable and cost-effective entry into this rapidly growing market. USA Datanet’s IP Network Solutions Group is designed to provide complete, end-to-end broadband telephony solutions customized for the specific needs of its customers — from local and regional operators with limited product development resources to ISPs and other data services providers looking to expand their existing services. All the components necessary to get up and running quickly and seamlessly are available for private label delivery, including the full set of enhanced call features, Web-based control and integrated order fulfillment capabilities — delivered and backed by a best-in-class customer service organization.

In addition to providing the full range of private label solutions for residential broadband telephony, USA Datanet offers a host of IP network services that provide unmatched performance, flexibility and value. From Nationwide Integrated VoIP PRI and Hosted IP Centrex to Dedicated Internet, IP Termination/Origination and a variety of Co-Location options, USA Datanet’s IP Network Solutions Group is well-equipped to serve the needs of small commercial enterprises and national carriers alike. With a network footprint that includes access and call termination capabilities across the United States and extensive international termination agreements with industry leading partners, USA Datanet can provide readily available capacity, capability and reach — designed, bundled and delivered in a flexible, cost-effective solution.

Key Technology Partners

USA Datanet has established close relationships over the past six years with leading network equipment and software platform developers that have been key factors in the design and operation of its advanced VoIP network and enhanced calling applications. The company’s proprietary SIP-based network design is based on soft switch technology from Sonus Networks, Inc. and strategic partnerships with Pactolus Communications and BroadSoft have contributed tremendous value to the development of the company’s innovative system control and enhanced calling features. Recent partnerships with 9–1-1 emergency services provider Intrado, Inc. and voice recognition expert Terakeet are contributing industry-leading technology and expertise that enable USA Datanet to provide a VoIP telephony service offering that is scalable, cost effective, feature-rich and customizable to meet constantly expanding market conditions.

About USA Datanet

Founded in 1998, USA Datanet Corporation is a leading provider of VoIP-based voice, Internet access and broadband telephony services to the retail, commercial and wholesale markets. The company operates its proprietary next-generation SIP-based network in providing long distance calling plans, international long distance calling to over 300 countries, Internet dial up access, calling cards, Personal 800 service and cost-effective teleconferencing solutions to a customer base of over 480,000 subscribers. The Syracuse, NY-based company is currently leveraging its IP network services expertise and best in class in-house customer service to offer of a full range of broadband telephony products and services to residential, business and wholesale customer markets. For more information about the company, visit www.usadatanet.com.

by Sheldon Gordon

Call it Voice over IP (VoIP). Call it IP telephony.

Or call it the convergence of voice and data networks. Sending telephone calls as data packets over Internet Protocol (IP) networks is a telecom option that Canadian businesses may increasingly choose when it’s time to replace legacy systems.
By turning to carrier-hosted IP networks, they can (for the first time) obtain the same sophisticated telecom applications without having to buy expensive routers and switches.

IP telephony’s early adopters tend to downplay the significance of long-distance savings and emphasize the flexibility and functionality of IP telephony with new applications being the most compelling driver.

Envision Financial, the third largest credit union in B.C., opted for VoIP in 2001, and expects to have it installed at all 27 of its offices within the next two to three years. The catalyst for adopting VoIP was Envision’s creation through the merger of two smaller credit unions — Delta and First Heritage.

The legacy phone system at the 10 former First Heritage branches had to be replaced, says CIO Jeff Connery, «and why put in old technology? We started with the idea that we should look to the future and how we could integrate more of our product. It wasn’t a purely financial argument.»

Certainly, the long-distance phone-bill savings were not an overriding factor, because a majority of the credit union’s branches are within the same calling area. «The consolidated dial plan — being able to do four-digit dialling among all of our branches — is considerably more important,» says Connery. «That puts everybody on to a similar way to connect.»

Envision is also integrating its company phone directory from Microsoft Outlook with its VoIP network so an employee can use the phone to search the directory, obtaining the same information that could be retrieved from his global address list in Outlook.

Common voice mail is another key application. «We’re able to take a voice message in one branch, and if it needs to be transferred to another branch, we can share that voice mail with anybody that’s on the system,» says Connery. «If the CEO gets a message from a client that wants to do business with us, that voice mail could be routed to the person that needs to have it to (deal with) it.»

While such features could have been introduced without VoIP, says Connery, «it would have been very, very expensive and not always all that easy.» He anticipates introducing additional features providing phone integration with Envision’s CRM, e-mail and human-resources databases and with its helpdesk.

Another major gain for Envision is the flexibility that VoIP permits. Consider an employee who decides that today she should work, say, at the data centre rather than at the operations centre. She can take her phone, plug it in at the data centre and punch in her number code. The system will find her and route her calls to her new location. No need for call-forwarding. No need for rewiring by a phone company technician.

Sir Sanford Fleming Community College was one of the first colleges to adopt IP telephony, installing it in 2001 at the new residence at its Peterborough, Ont., campus. The college had also recently built a robust IP network and, partly because of its expertise in the technology, decided to make VoIP the strategic direction for all its voice services. «The second factor,» says CIO Jim Angel, «was that the price point [for IP telephony] had dropped enough that we could build a multi-year business case for collapsing voice and data into one network.»

He has now rolled out VoIP at both the Peterborough and Lindsay campuses, although only in new additions to those sites. With 50 per cent of the college’s install base already VoIP, Angel estimates that over the next two years, the legacy telephone system will be completely replaced. He relishes the savings, both existing and future.

«My network support analysts can deploy a phone now just like they deploy a computer. You plug the phone into the drop beside the computer drop. It’s another IP device. From a service-contract perspective, I’ve been able to decrease my costs associated with third parties. It varies, depending on the provider, between $60 and $100 an hour.»

The big benefit, though, says Angel «will be when we don’t have to upgrade our main core phone switch because we’ve been busily upgrading the rest of the infrastructure. Next year is when it’s actually coming due, and we won’t have to do that upgrade.»

Angel also foresees the day when IP telephony is sufficiently widespread at other colleges that Fleming users will be able to make direct IP phone calls to these sister institutions and avoid long-distance charges. As for new phone features, however, Fleming is in no rush. «Right now, we’re just building people’s confidence that this VoIP phone is as solid and reliable as the ’regular’ phone,» says Angel.

McMillan Binch, a Toronto law firm, adopted VoIP in December 2003.

«We were moving from one side of Bay Street to the other,» says Chris Duncan, McMillan Binch’s IT director. «It would have cost us $150,000 to move an antiquated ROAM (remote operations administration and maintenance) system that was probably 15 years old, versus buying a new switch that could be put into the space ahead of time and being assured that it works prior to our moving in there.»

The law firm is in the early stages of introducing new applications. One of its first: access to the firm’s CRM database through its phones. «If I

had you in our CRM,» says Duncan, «I could be looking up your number through any phone in the firm and have it dial you. I wouldn’t have to enter any of the digits for your number. That’s not part of a traditional PBX.»

Another VoIP-enabled application tracks the time on long-distance calls and sends the data in a text file to the accounting system, which bills clients accordingly. The application could be used for tracking all phone time logged with clients (though the law firm currently has no plans to do so).

Having invested several hundred thousand dollars in IP telephony, organizations are pleased with its functionality, but are unsure of the return on investment.

«(Vendors) seem to believe that it’s easier to justify than it is,» says Duncan. «I’m not convinced that the ROI is a whole lot different than any traditional PBX. It came down to ease of use, which is critical in a law firm. Law firms use every single feature of a phone.»

Envision’s Connery adds, «The productivity gains, we feel, are quite large and worth it, but they’re a lot harder to measure. How do you measure the ability to route e-mail to the right person?»

The lack of hard numbers, however, does not deter the carriers from marketing IP telephony as a user-friendly and productivity enhancing service.

«The average employee uses only six per cent of the features available on a traditional PBX,» says Boris Koechlin, portfolio director of VoIP at Telus. «The typical Nortel phone in an office has some 380 features available, but the average person doesn’t know how to do anything with it.

»But if I put a Web portal for IP telephony in front of them and say, ’point and click,’ `drag and drop,’ now all of a sudden it’s easy to create, for example, a distribution list for voice mail.

«We did a trial for the federal government a year ago where, after six weeks, average workers were using 60 per cent of the available features.»

Are functionality and productivity enough to close the deal for IP telephony? If so, the coming business communications renaissance may not be on hold any longer.

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VoIP, or Voice over Internet Protocol, is quickly emerging as one of the dominant trends in telecommunications this year.

So what exactly is VoIP? Forget the technical jargon and think ’phone over the Internet’ A pretty simple concept really. VoIP transforms a high-speed Internet connection into a phone line, converting your analog voice into a digital signal that can be transmitted over the Internet.

While you can’t use VoIP with dial-up Internet service, it works with most types of access including DSL, DSL Lite and cable modem. As well, VoIP offered through a company like Primus Canada also works with most wireless service providers including Bell Sympatico, Rogers Cable and Shaw to name a few.

So where do the savings come in? Long distance charges, that’s where.

Because a small business owner can pick his area code without being restricted to geography, a virtual office can be created in a local call zone.

For example, let’s say a marketing firm has employees in Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal. By choosing one area code, all calls on company lines between those three locations would be considered local — and exempt from long-distance calling charges. For a company that makes a lot of long-distance calls the savings can quickly up to hundreds, or even thousands of dollars a month.

«It’s basically faster, cheaper service than what you would get from your phone company, „ says Jon Arnold, VoIP program leader with business consultants Frost & Sullivan.

Of course, there’s more to VoIP than being able to make a phone call over the Internet. It’s about bringing voice and data together in a way to customize your company’s information to gain efficiencies.

For example, voice-mail can be treated as e-mail using VoIP, meaning you can forward it on to a third party.

“The cool thing is,» says Arnold, «is that you really don’t have to be a big business to take advantage of VoIP.»

But according to consultants IDC Canada, small businesses aren’t adopting VoIP as quickly as the buzz around this product might suggest.

According to a recent study by IDC, only 6% of businesses with 50–99 employees have adopted VoIP, or are in the process of rolling it out. Just 15% were considering it and looking at the different options available to them and 75% of respondents said they didn’t want to implement VoIP at this point. The remaining 4% said they didn’t know what their opinion about the technology was.

So what’s keeping small businesses from jumping on the VoIP bandwagon?

Michael Hyjek, analyst for business customer segments at IDC says he’s not surprised by the seemingly low pick up. «Small business owners are slow adopters to begin with,» says Hyjek. «They’re not going to buy it until they absolutely need it.»

Arnold agrees. He says many small businesses take a ’if it ain’t broke — why fix it’ approach to managing their telecommunications. «The incumbents offer really good phone service.»

One telecom consultant has a more suspect reason. «The technology’s not all it’s cracked up to be,» says business analyst Eamon Hoey of Hoey Associates. «VoIP technology can be unreliable.»

Not to mention, the pickings for a small business looking to migrate to VoIP are slim, with Primus and Vonage the two main companies going after this market.

Primus has two different packages for small business to choose from. TalkBroadBand Pro is the most basic package available to small business owners. For $27.95 a month users get a number of features, including a phone number, basic directory listing and a choice of direct dialing or extension dialing (4-digit dialing within a service area). TalkBroadBand Enterprise for $29.95 a month will get a small business owner Web portal access as well.

Vonage’s small business basic plan is listed at $55.99 on their website.

Until a regulatory framework for VoIP has been established, Arnold says it’s unlikely small business owners will see more choices available to them.

The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) is currently debating that framework. It recently held hearings regarding a preliminary opinion earlier in the year that it thought it should regulate VoIP for the big players, like Bell, Telus and Aliant, but not for the newer entrants.

While the incumbents argued strenuously for de-regulation, the smaller players are concerned that should that happen, their competitive jump-start will disappear.Hoey thinks it unlikely the big telcos will get their way. «I think the CRTC is leaning towards the conservative advantage — those who want to see the telco’s regulated.»

If that happens, Arnold says more choice for the small business owner could be long time coming. «As it stands now, BCE, Telus and Aliant don’t have much incentive to enter the market.»

Consumers like flexibility and low cost — telecom firms avoid access issues.
By Clint Swett -- Bee Staff Writer
Published 2:15 am PDT Sunday, September 26, 2004

When Shawn Cheris talks on the phone in his Sacramento home, he easily could forget his calls are being routed over the Internet, rather than via SBC’s network.

«It’s crystal clear,» he said of the conversations he has over Vonage’s Internet phone system that’s hooked to his cable modem. «If anything, it’s better than what I had before.»

Although there are about only 1.1 million customers like Cheris in the United States, according to Frost & Sullivan analyst Jon Arnold, experts are predicting that VOIP (voice over Internet protocol) soon will gain enough traction in American households to pose a serious threat to traditional telephone service.

And as California regulators finally settled a heated battle Thursday over the price of access to phone lines between SBC and the company’s competitors, it seems clear that VOIP could make such disputes less relevant.

Unlike traditional telephone service that moves voices over a circuit from one phone to another, VOIP routes calls over the Internet, breaking the voice into packets of 1’s and 0’s at the calling end and reassembling them at or near the receiving end.

Despite its techie-sounding name, VOIP no longer is the province of computer geeks. AT&T is heavily marketing its CallVantage VOIP service to consumers in 39 states as it retreats from trying to sell traditional phone service to residential customers.

Cable companies like SureWest Broadband routinely offer a hybrid of VOIP and traditional phone service as part of their cable television and Internet package. And Comcast expects to offer a similar service in Sacramento late next year.

Even SBC is hedging its bets by working to develop a consumer VOIP system, though no timetable has been set for its rollout.

The gathering momentum prompts Michael Greeson, president of The Diffusion Group, a Dallas-area market research firm, to estimate that VOIP could grow to 8 million residential users by 2008. Arnold of Frost & Sullivan pegs the number at 16 million.

VOIP isn’t too difficult to set up, requiring only a telephone, broadband Internet service and a cigar-box-size device that digitizes the voice.

More important, voice quality approaches that of standard phone service.

Chuck Bane, a Hewlett-Packard sales manager and Natomas resident, said his Vonage service generally is quite clear and always better than a cellular phone call.

«The quality isn’t always perfect, but most people I talk to can’t tell I’m on an (Internet) line,» he said.

As the technology continues to improve, it’s expected to draw more customers.

«We will see traction in this market fairly quickly,» said Greeson. «This will make serious inroads into the telephone business.»

VOIP has several advantages over traditional telephone systems, including price and flexibility. For phone companies, it requires much less investment than a traditional phone network.

Industry pioneer Vonage, with more than 200,000 customers, offers a $30 monthly package for unlimited local and long-distance service and a host of features that include caller ID, voice mail, three-way calling, call waiting and call forwarding. Primus, a newer entrant in the market, offers essentially the same thing for $20 a month.

In contrast, a similar plan from traditional phone company SBC is $48.95 a month.

Price is what prompted Cheris to switch from SBC to Vonage about a year ago. «For what you pay and what you get, it’s kind of a no-brainer,» he said.

VOIP providers also expect the flexibility of being able to program phone features will appeal to users.

Customers of AT&T’s CallVantage system, for instance, can program their services via the Web, setting up conference calls, forwarding their calls to up to five phones and tracking their telephone activity online.

Because VOIP providers piggyback on an established network — the Internet — they can avoid the huge capital investments needed to build and maintain a traditional phone network. Nor do they have to wrangle with established phone companies to lease portions of their systems.

With an estimated 30 percent of American households equipped with broadband connections, VOIP companies have a built-in market. In addition, VOIP has avoided the taxes and regulations levied on traditional phone companies.

Although the taxes might add a few dollars to a phone bill, observing regulatory rules can be a greater burden.

Lou Holder, vice president of product development for Vonage, says the company can deal with federal regulators. «Our fear is that states will get regulatory control,» he said. «Then you have 50 different states applying 50 different sets of rules.»

It’s unclear how that might play out. The California Public Utilities Commission has claimed jurisdiction over VOIP service that connects to the local phone network. But a bill in a congressional committee would deny states the right to regulate VOIP, reserving such control for federal authorities.

Because VOIP isn’t part of the traditional phone network, the technology remains foreign to many customers.

According to a study by The Diffusion Group, nearly 35 percent of Internet households have never heard of VOIP, and nearly 40 percent that have heard of it are not familiar with it.

Even with more familiarity, potential users could be put off because VOIP lacks some features that most phone users take for granted.

Traditional phone systems continue to operate during a power outage, but VOIP would not without a battery backup for the modem and other gear.

In many cases, a VOIP customer’s address doesn’t register with calls to emergency 911, as it would over the regular phone network.

«While that may not seem important, it never does until an (emergency) event occurs,» said Teresa Mastrangelo, an analyst with RHK Inc., a technology consulting firm in South San Francisco. She said those issues must be solved before VOIP can become ubiquitous.

In addition, the VOIP phones can’t be plugged into traditional phone outlets throughout the house, meaning those who want extension lines must use cordless phones linked to a central-base station.

And there’s the matter of Internet access. People with cable-modem service can either get VOIP from their cable company or through a company like Vonage or AT&T.

But those with DSL, which comes over a phone line, must pay for regular voice service on that line, even if they use VOIP instead. In Sacramento, that would be about $10.69 a month, plus taxes and other fees.

«That (extra cost) will tend to discourage people,» Greeson said.

Those roadblocks aren’t expected to stifle VOIP’s long-term growth. «I’ve recommended this to a lot of people,» said Cheris, a self-described computer geek. «Everyone seems pretty happy with it.»