Voice over IP (VOIP) solutions are set for a resurgence in popularity during 2015.
So says Louis Jardim, commercial director of Turrito Networks, who notes, as networks have matured, operators are finally in a position to offer enterprise-grade voice quality at affordable prices.
The pricing structure is a result of ICASA's decision to lower interconnect rates in 2014, which makes VOIP more compelling to corporates, he explains.
Jardim believes 2015 is the year VOIP will get to mature in the South African market, adding the cost of last-mile media, such as dedicated fibre and microwave, has reduced significantly over the last three to four years.
"Customers migrating to a corporate VOIP solution can route calls over a dedicated medium to ensure they get Telkom-quality voice services," he says.
He adds that ICASA's reduction in interconnect rates has made migrating to VOIP more compelling for businesses. "They are now, more than ever, able to realise significant savings by opting for VOIP, as opposed to routing their calls over Telkom.
"There is already a commitment by ICASA to further reduce the interconnect rates, making VOIP an even better business value proposition in the longer term."
According to Jardim, three to four years ago, when VOIP was initially introduced to clients as an alternative to traditional telephony services, it was a fairly new technology, with low levels of expertise.
He explains these became the driving factors for VOIP not taking off at the time. "As engineers became more skilled and developed a greater understanding of how VOIP configurations and routing should be done to achieve a proper solution, so it became a more mainstream technology for corporate clients."
At the time, says Jardim, higher-quality last-mile media, such as Telkom diginets, dedicated fibre and microwave links, were still too expensive to offer the cost savings that made VOIP attractive.
However, he notes, the landscape has changed as new bandwidth has come online and costs have dropped dramatically. "We can now build dedicated fibre and microwave networks to carry our clients' voice traffic, at a price that's truly competitive with Telkom, while still offering quality of service guarantees."
The key question potential VOIP clients need to ask their service providers, says Jardim, is "How are you going to route my calls and what infrastructure are the calls going to be routed over? Via the Internet, or via an MPLS [multiprotocol label switching] network?"
Jardim explains MPLS routing, if correctly configured, can guarantee that enterprises won't suffer dropped calls, crackling lines and degraded voice quality.
Organisations with large voice bills, he adds, can easily shave 30-40% off their monthly costs - and thanks to geographic number portability, there's no need to change a single number. "No business wants to change its phone numbers if that can be avoided," he says. "With an enterprise-grade VOIP solution, nobody except the IT department should even know anything has changed."
Apart from the cost savings, Jardim says VOIP is also attractive for its ability to provide uninterrupted service.
"Nobody these days should be running their communications over a single medium; everything goes down sooner or later. With a choice of Telkom diginets, fibre and microwave links, businesses can be assured the phone will always ring."
Share