The arrival of voice over IP (VOIP) and cloud-based telephony undoubtedly started a new era in South African telecoms.
However, the reliance by small companies on ADSL as a link for their voice communications is threatening the uptake of VOIP and putting their businesses at risk.
Best effort
Because ADSL is a 'best-effort' technology, it is not suitable for business-critical voice communications. Providers quite simply do not have control over the number of subscribers accessing the service, and can therefore offer no guarantees.
And in many areas, as Telkom exchanges become congested or fall into disrepair, the ADSL service becomes unreliable, and hence unusable by business standards.
Way too often, downtime or poor quality voice results in frustration, lost business and a growing belief that VOIP is not ready in South Africa. The truth is, 90% of call quality problems can be attributed to the quality of the connection.
Not good enough
Of course, you may be connected to an upgraded Telkom exchange that isn't over-contended, making for an acceptable e-mail and Internet experience. But how will you know if your connection is suitable for voice?
Downloading 1MB of data in a minute or two may seem like a reasonably good experience, even if the download stopped entirely several times or broke up while downloading - because it would still be usable.
But not so with voice - if this was a one-minute conversation you were having, you would be ready to throw the phone against the wall or shout at your service provider (to no avail).
Typical ADSL quality issues
The following quality issues routinely occur with best-effort connections like ADSL:
* Audio fading in and out
* One-way audio
* Audio resembling talking underwater
* Jittery voice (constant breaks in the conversation)
* Calls randomly dropping
Alternatives to ADSL
The point is, South Africa needs an alternative to ADSL if VOIP is going to thrive in the SME market. The demand for good quality, reliable and reasonably-priced Internet protocol-based voice connectivity for SMEs is at an all-time high.
Whereas larger businesses and corporates can afford Diginet leased lines, broadlink and fibre connections, which deliver perfectly clear voice, they are out of reach for the large majority of SMEs. And even if they could afford it, their overall cost of telephony would end up being significantly higher than using traditional fixed-line telephony, which almost defeats the purpose (but not entirely).
Euphoria has worked with a number of wireless providers to prioritise voice traffic, thus lifting voice communications on these networks to a level of quality above ADSL.
It has been using a number of methods, including Quality of Service (QoS) and virtual private networks (VPNs), to ensure an unencumbered connection and minimal interference - the single biggest cause of degraded quality on wireless data links.
Besides SMEs, these connections will also work for property developers and business parks, providing a central point of voice connectivity that can be resold to tenants.
Watch this space!
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Euphoria
Founded in 2010, Euphoria is a ground-breaking provider of VOIP (voice over Internet protocol) communication services for small and medium-sized businesses in South Africa. Euphoria powers businesses with its core offering, Euphoria Express PBX, a hosted PBX phone system that provides customers with the quality and reliability of traditional PBX phone systems, with more features, flexibility and cost savings. Euphoria helps businesses compete more effectively by providing them with communication services traditionally reserved for large organisations, at small business prices. View its Web site at www.euphoria.co.za or contact (087) 943 4970 or sales@euphoria.co.za.
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