Local companies have been cautioned not to "jump in without giving enough thought to planning" when implementing voice over IP (VOIP) solutions.
Speaking at the VOIP conference hosted by ITWeb in Johannesburg yesterday, Unison Communications MD Craig Young said all VOIP initiatives should be "related to a return on investment over a specific period of time".
IT decision-makers should determine whether they require an upgrade to existing voice traffic systems, a complete change to their current infrastructure and whether they could leverage existing equipment in any way while formulating their VOIP strategies, he said.
Part of this process should be a thorough analysis of their existing voice traffic in terms of the duration and number of local, international, branch to branch and branch to customer calls, said Young. "Fair consideration also needs to be given to redundancy planning," he added, as well as to establishing priorities where data and voice traffic were concerned.
With the best technology not always being the best business decision from a financial perspective, management teams should also be careful about balancing cost reductions against quality of service, Young said.
With most vendors "clamouring for market share", Kathea Communications CEO Greg Darke said it was impossible to give a clear indication of the potential cost savings promised by VOIP.
However, VOIP calls would certainly be significantly cheaper, and a possible spin-off saving would result through the current telecommunications and cellular players dropping their rates as the market became more competitive.
Telkom, he said, would lose revenue to VOIP industry players, as well as experience a diminished profit margin on the voice traffic business it retained.
Typically the cost of VOIP calls were at least 80% cheaper than those carried by incumbent telcos, said Viper Networks MD Peter Lange.
He stressed the need for a "strong regulator" in the current telecommunications environment, and said he expected Telkom to react to the introduction of VOIP by increasing the cost of local calls and monthly line rentals.
Share