When full IP telephony was first introduced on the back of the success of voice over IP (VOIP), it was embraced by large organisations that saw IP telephony as a way to cut costs and simplify infrastructure by converging voice and data on one network.
Organisations deployed IP telephony and removed traditional voice systems to take advantage of this new technology. However, the promise of IP telephony fell short of expectations as the implications of running the entire voice environment over IP became clear.
The fact was that many organisations that rolled out full IP telephony solutions failed to assess the impact of carrying voice on the data network, which can cause a variety of problems leading to a decline in the adoption of IP telephony.
"One of the major challenges experienced with early adopters of IP telephony was a lack of resiliency and redundancy. With data networks this was built in, but organisations simply piggybacked the voice onto the data network without thought to this problem, and as a result voice was not stable on the data network and clashes between voice and data traffic occurred," says Dawie Bloomberg, Business Services Director at The Webcom Group.
Added to this was the complication of turning voice waves into IP packets to be sent over the data network. With data networks, when certain packets get delayed or delivered out of sequence it was not a problem. But voice communication is highly time-sensitive and when packets were delayed the quality of communications was notoriously poor, with issues such as latency and jitter creeping in.
"Running voice over an IP network has also been problematic because of the quality and availability of bandwidth, and when Internet connectivity fails, the voice network collapses too. This led to major frustration and lost productivity as well as a general decline in the adoption of IP telephony solutions," says Bryant Dennis, co-owner of Converged Telecoms, a Webcom partner.
However, what was once bleeding edge technology has now matured and the problems experienced in the past have been dealt with. One of the key learnings from the initial failure of IP telephony has been the necessity of conducting an assessment of the network and the resources required for both voice and data, as well as the realisation that IP telephony is simply not always a viable solution.
The emergence of specialised IP voice engineers with the level of skills and knowledge needed to implement this technology effectively ensures that it is stable. These engineers have knowledge of how both voice and data function on an IP network and have the technical expertise to implement a fully converged telecoms environment where voice and data work together and neither is placed above the other in terms of importance.
"One thing that organisations need to be aware of is that running voice communications over an IP network opens these communications up to the same security threats that data networks are vulnerable to. When running IP voice communications your lines can be stolen and hacked into and people with malicious intent can listen to confidential conversations and steal information," says Bloomberg. "While the emergence of open source and freeware platforms has allowed more people to enter this space, it is vital to use a trained professional IP engineer to ensure that the system is as secure as data networks have come to be."
Freeware IP telephony systems also create challenges, especially with organisations using this technology as the primary box, leading to problems due do 'bugs' in the systems. However, a far more prevalent issue, especially in South Africa, is rogue IP telephony companies that tweak the source code as they see fit. This means that no two companies install the open source devices the same way - thereby holding companies to ransom, and locking them into contracts because nobody else knows exactly what has been done to the source code and as a result cannot maintain or run the system. This defeats the objective of open source software.
"These open source solutions feature exceptional functionality at an impressive price point but the misuse of them by unscrupulous organisations continues tarnish the reputation of IP telephony, as do implementations by people who simply do not have the necessary skills to create the vital balance between voice and data on an IP network," Dennis explains. "Using big brand names is better option as the customer is then protected by globally held standards and anybody who is trained on that particular brand's system will be able to look after equipment."
Having said that, however, the market is now ready for IP telephony as the big brands have delivered pure IP platforms onto the market with all of the kinks of yesteryear worked out. Networks and data equipment purchased now are voice enabled, so moving in this direction is only a matter of time.
In South Africa, the biggest inhibitor to the uptake of IP telephony has been, and continues to be, the quality of the available bandwidth. But this is set to change when the bandwidth opened up for use during the World Cup is released for public consumption and the additional undersea cable set to be connected from the West cost, again something which is only a matter of time.
"Organisations that plan to migrate to converged technology will be able to take advantage of far more simplified maintenance, as most maintenance can be conducted remotely, saving significant amounts of money on call out and labour. Monitoring and maintenance can also be conducted proactively from a remote site on pure IP servers, which means that issues can be identified and dealt with before they escalate, preventing downtime from happening in the first place," says Dennis.
"This technology is especially attractive in Greenfield sites, where the infrastructure is built from the ground up. However, putting a migration strategy into place to plan infrastructure upgrades is also a sound business move, as IP telephony is most definitely the way forward when it comes to voice communications," concludes Bloomberg.
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