The Advantages of IP Telephony Systems for Businesses

By Nick McDonald, Contributing Writer TMCnews

As customers turn to telephones everyday to get answers to questions, many companies are turning to digital or IP phone services to meet increasing demands. Syndeo Communications is one company helping organizations with these types of needs, as it offers a paramount phone system called the Switchvox (News - Alert) AA355.

The system provides businesses with a well-rounded communication strategy that utilizes many of the features found in other Voice Over IP (VoIP) systems. Thanks to call recording and reporting features, organizations that use this IP telephony system can ensure customer service levels remain high.

Another prominent VoIP equipment provider, TelcoDepot.com has created a new and improved IP phone service that it will advertise on its online site. The TalkSwitch (News - Alert) VSX is ideal for small businesses. Each VSX system comes equipped with 20 auto attendants, 16 remote extensions and a voicemail broadcast feature. All three also support external IP extensions with high quality G.711 voice encoding.

Overall, these types of call controlling systems are not only efficient, but they also provide a control mechanism for business spending. By providing call accounting assistance, a company can get the proper information needed to run an efficient call system. Besides the money it saves, call accounting can also help businesses drive traffic and with proper monitoring, create productivity by reducing the amount of non-business activity.

IP-based systems will also assist call accounting solutions by offering more possibilities. Given the complexities of the corporate environment as calls are routed over a variety of channels and include extra data, such as voice and multimedia communications, it is imperative for organizations to have an IP service that works for them. In this new era of digital media and providers, IP phone systems and services are an element businesses may be overlooking, and it could cost them in the end. Finding a way to efficiently communicate with customers is imperative and IP phone systems are a great tool that will help organizations do just that.

IP Reflections – SIP and Serve Blog: David Byrd

In attempting to better understand the impact of the FCC rules change regarding InterCarrier Compensation (ICC) and Universal Service Funding (USF), I found myself lost in a sea of IP related missives. Ignoring the obviously flawed reasoning behind the rules change, I looked for studies that could summarize their effects upon an ITSP like Broadvox. On the surface the changes appear to create a level of fairness by addressing unfair termination and access charges. However, the reality is they will negatively impact rural carriers and VoIP service providers. All of whom are analyzing the financial impact upon their revenue streams in order to determine the proper path forward. Since the FCC chairman, Julius Genachowski, indicates that the change is his solution to expanding the reach of broadband and implementing a fairer approach to funding that expansion, I view the overall action as misguided. In prior blogs, I have indicated that focusing our efforts on expanding the reach of broadband is premature given our poor position relative to the rest of world in delivering competitive broadband to the majority of the country. Whereas, it is possible to get 1 gigabit speeds in various countries, the US is struggling to provide speeds in excess of 20 megabits at a reasonable price point. This becomes increasingly important with the adoption rate of multimedia mobile devices.

Bandwidth consumption is experiencing a dramatic increase because of video on demand, video conferencing and streaming applications, all of which are provided by a growing number of content delivery networks. Frost and Sullivan are projecting a nearly 30% increase in 2012. Amazingly, this may be a low forecast given the adoption rate of smartphones and tablets. Consider that nearly 500 million such devices were sold last quarter. Perhaps, it is appropriate to remind you of Google’s intent to deliver a gigabit IP network to Kansas City, Missouri and Kansas City, Kansas. Construction on the project began in earnest just this month. After completion residents will be able to experience Internet speeds 100 times the current average equaling the top speed available throughout Kiev, Ukraine and by the end of year every home in South Korea.

The US has a penchant for ignoring what is happening in other countries. It is a detriment that we continue to do so despite having the greatest international presence of any country. Our lack of awareness and knowledge results in poor planning and misplaced priorities. Our ability to navel gaze is not the result of our political system but is the nature of our culture. We do not embrace true diversity well (multiple languages, international concepts, interracial neighborhoods and social environments).

IP communications has become the foundation for technological innovation, financial markets, education, entertainment and global communications. I support making it universally available in the US after we make it competitive with the rest of the world.

Source: telecom reseller

When Transitioning to VoIP, Put the Plumbing First

By Bryan Johns | http://www.nojitter.com

In my day job, I spend a lot of time debating the benefits of open source IP PBX solutions versus their proprietary competitors. There are a lot of options in the IP PBX market today and amongst those there are both good and bad products in both the open source and proprietary vendor segments. Independent of the PBX equipment decision, many aspects of a network impact the success or failure of a VoIP implementation project. Prior to my work at Digium (sponsor of Asterisk and Asterisk SCF), I spent my days building VoIP networks for corporations and carriers, and over my decade in that business I learned a very simple lesson: always put the plumbing first.

By plumbing, I mean the network-layer media, equipment and services that handle everything except making and taking phone calls. This realm includes your physical infrastructure and cabling, your switching fabric, your routing environment and your service provider networks. Deficiencies at any of these layers can render the best IP PBX on the planet a spectacular failure. It is important to remember that when you are building a network to support media, you are building for user experience and this raises the bar for performance and management across your network infrastructure.

Here are a few specific recommendations to consider when you are setting out to deploy media (voice or video) across a network of any size.

Build a Media-Capable LAN
A media-capable LAN is a local network infrastructure that has the ability to prioritize and protect real time media moving within it. In order to achieve this design, a network must have a switching fabric that, at a minimum, supports the prioritization of certain traffic types via differentiated services (diffserv) and the segmentation of networks via VLANs (802.1Q). Real time media should be insulated from the balance of data traffic on your LAN and switched with priority to ensure the highest possible quality, to facilitate troubleshooting and to provide a quality user experience.

Give Media Its Own Route
In the same way that it is important to segment real time media from other traffic inside of your local network, this traffic must also be separately routed and managed at the gateway to your company’s network. If your real time media is consolidated with all of your other traffic traversing your gateway, you have no means of selectively troubleshooting performance issues when they arise. At a bare minimum, you should route real time media at its own IP address, but if you have the right equipment you can route media on its own interface and gain better control for performance and management.

Buy Services Based on Network Analysis
Over the last five years there has been a dramatic increase in the quantity and types of vendors offering bring-your-own-bandwidth VoIP services over the Internet. When selecting a provider for VoIP services, it is important to investigate the quality of connection between your company’s network and the network of your proposed vendor(s). By taking a close look at network performance attributes between you and your provider such as router hops, jitter, latency and voice quality beyond your provider’s network, you can qualify or disqualify potential vendors based upon their performance and save yourself headaches down the road associated with poor voice quality.

Use Good Equipment
It has been my experience that equipment quality can have a significant impact on the perceived performance of a VoIP infrastructure. For example, a cheap headset or handset can cause issues that are easily misinterpreted as network performance concerns. This can send your network admin and your provider into a fruitless support effort that might or might not be successfully traced back to the cheap equipment. The amount of money that can be saved buying cheap equipment pales in comparison to the amount of lost productivity that you can incur trying to troubleshoot and eradicate quality issues for your users. By buying quality equipment, you can take a long list of potential contributors off the list for your support resources and focus on those things most likely to help them address a problem.

This is by no means a comprehensive list of considerations when transitioning to VoIP. There are many factors that come together to dictate the success or failure of a VoIP implementation project. However, these points are the stand-out contributors to VoIP network performance in my years of experience in that business. Just because the technology and the services around it offer the promise of being less expensive to operate that does not mean that you should deploy the least expensive equipment or service options. Do your research, be selective and don't sell yourself short and you'll find that a conversion to VoIP infrastructure and services will pay off to your expectations.

Report: Softphone market set for rapid expansion

Softphones haven't impacted the enterprise market like smartphones have, but new research indicates they could see strong growth in the next six years as businesses look to contain costs and take advantage of expanding VoIP networks.

Global Industry Analysts forecast the market could grow to $217.2 million in value by 2017, with 2.9 million units in volume sales, primarily driven by increasing enterprise mobility and workforce virtualization.

The firm said that while the United States is the world's largest market for softphones, the fastest growing region is APAC, where sales are increasing at a CAGR in excess of 19 percent, and revenue is growing at a CAGR of more than 13 percent.

Major players in the marketplace include Avaya, Broadview Networks, Cisco (Nasdaq: CSCO), CounterPath and Mirial, among others.

Call centers continue to adopt softphones, primarily because the ability to turn a PC and/or a laptop into a telephone allows for the elimination of wired hardware requirements, saves space, is easy to set up and install, and is cost effective for long-distance international calling and rapid integration into database systems.

The diffusion of SIP devices, the progressive decrease in price points, and the continued rise in the overall value proposition of IP softphones in terms of applications and features are some of the factors that could encourage market adoption.

GIA said mobility and workforce virtualization are key growth drivers for the market.

Increasingly, vendors are looking to SMBs, offering specially tailored solutions designed to meet the unique requirements of this customer cluster. As increased numbers of SMBs begin to recognize the advantage of IP telephony, and as older telephony platforms reach the end of their lifecycle, IP adoption is expected to continue gaining momentum.

Growing deployment of VoIP networks as a result of globalization and deregulation of markets, and improving performance of VoIP networks, is helping push up the business case for enterprise softphones, said GIA.

Source: http://www.fierceenterprisecommunications.com/

Everything You Need to Know about Voice and Conferencing - A Beginners Guide

To improve communication within your enterprise and to clients outside, it’s best to have voice and video communication integrated. Have your phone network integrated with your computer network and make it easy for your employees and colleagues to route the customer to the best possible solution with a rapid success rate.

IP technology is really advanced and its lets you add new employees, new branches, new workers, etc, as and when your business expands. Making your business succeed is far easier when your team has all the communication solutions it needs.

Bring it all together:

A business uses a wide array of tools to function smoothly. These include, calendar, internet, email, fax, phone systems, messaging, and many more applications. We need all of these to make sure that the business runs without any hiccups. Wouldn’t it be a miracle if all of these applications were integrated into a single solution? It would helps us performs loads of tasks with increased efficiency:

• With the help of voice, video and data conferencing facilities, you can conduct meetings with your team from anywhere in the world.
• Help team members locate each other easily.
• Use wireless devices to get important information when needed.
• Direct your customers to the appropriate person without wasting any time.
• Give employees the freedom to work from anywhere they want.
• Expand your business and add new employees and branches without any added hassle or cost.
• Protect your business completely from any security threats or viruses.

To explore in detail how voice, video, and data conferencing make this happen, look below.

IP Telephony:

IP telephony uses your secure data network to integrate features like dial tone, conferencing, transfer, hold, and other basic features. Employees in your office can easily direct a customer to the right person, even if he was in a remote location as the system connects everyone.

Software:

Deploy a single user friendly system to enable the employees in your office to connect with each other through voice and video conferencing. This helps them arrange for meetings and share important information with clients and colleagues from across the world at a touch of a button.

Presence Solutions:

Presence solutions help your team determine who is online and who is not. This enables them to determine the availability or other colleagues and get access to their contact details and time of availability.


Unified Messaging:

Having to access different messaging folders to view your mails and messages is quite inconvenience. With the help of Unified messaging, have all these delivered to a single messaging folder – your email inbox.

Rich Media Conferencing:

Hold conference meetings with your colleagues and co-workers from across the world in different branches with the help of voice, video, and data conferencing. This feature provides efficient collaboration where everyone gets an equal chance to participate in the meeting.

VoIP Migration Leads to Savings, Worker Mobility

By Elsa Wenzel, PCWorld

The telephone switchboard and landline desk phone may not be dead, but they are becoming relics of the past along with office ashtrays and typewriters.

Businesses are increasingly turning away from PBX (private branch exchange) phone systems and toward VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) telephony, which enables conversations to travel as data across the Internet. By 2013 more than 80 percent of businesses will use VoIP, according to research by In-Stat.

Is VoIP Right for You?

VoIP can be ideal if your company handles many calls among multiple people, has mobile employees, or juggles satellite offices. Implementing the technology can help to shrink or eliminate the cost of long-distance and conference calls.

In addition, VoIP provides the flexibility to manage calls as you would other data. For example, a caller's contact information may pop up on a Web-based dashboard or on a smartphone with a VoIP app when they ring your number. Depending on the service, voice calls can be translated to text that you read via e-mail or on a smartphone. Many VoIP services extend beyond voice to encompass instant messaging, virtual meetings, and videoconferencing. VoIP is key to unified communications efforts to integrate all of your correspondence into a single, digital hub.

If you already have a local or wide-area network, then you've already laid much of the groundwork. Make sure that your organization has enough bandwidth--a T1 line or better--before trying to cram your calls through a sluggish data pipeline.

VoIP Options

What kind of VoIP system you need depends on the size of your business and the number of locations. One person working at home probably doesn't need much more than a consumer service such as Skype, ViaTalk, or Vonage. Just sign up, download the app, don a headset, and you're good to go. Skype even offers encryption to keep calls private. Mobile VoIP apps can help you rein in cell phone bills.

But that's not enough if you need individual phone lines for your employees. In this case, the many VoIP options essentially break down to either a hosted or on-site VoIP service. Hybrid services can blend the two, letting you combine old and new equipment.

Research firm Frost & Sullivan projects that hosted VoIP will grow by 30 percent and on-premise by 12 percent over the next five years.

This Yealink SIP phone may look old-school, but it uses VoIP services.Hosted VoIP leaves the heavy technology lifting to another company. It can help a small business appear bigger by offering PBX-style features, such as individual phone numbers for employees and call transfers, even to workers away from their desks. It can include toll-free numbers and integration with e-mail and faxing software. You basically download software and buy or lease IP phones for each user. There's little need to invest in expensive equipment or to pay an IT pro for ongoing support. 8x8 and Speakeasy are among the many companies offering hosted VoIP. Your Internet service provider may offer options for VoIP service, as well.

By contrast, on-premise VoIP will offer all the features of a hosted service, with the option for fine-tuning. Avaya and Cisco are among the vendors to consider. For this VoIP PBX option, however, you'll have to handle all the hardware and the calls, so it's time to call an IT pro. If you're upgrading from a pure PBX system, a VoIP gateway device on your network can make the transition. Once you have VoIP going on your network, you should optimize your router and your network to prioritize traffic to ensure high call quality.

Before You Leap

As for the drawbacks, a hosted service may lack the customization you crave, or charge you extra fees for adding features or new users; it could leave you high and dry if the company goes belly-up, too. With on-premise VoIP, you may suffer the obvious headaches and costs of managing any tech equipment in-house, including a large up-front investment.

Before you make the big VoIP switch-over, look closely at the numbers. Compare what you currently spend per user on phone service with what you project to pay a VoIP provider. Read the fine print of any service to determine any hidden fees. Figure in hardware and ongoing maintenance, and don't forget to add the cost of a faster Internet connection, if you need one.

Case Study: Green Heating-Products Seller Saves Greenbacks With VoIP

The problem:

JTG/Muir struggled with an aging PBX phone system. The lack of features and growing maintenance costs turned off the small business, which sells energy-efficient heating equipment directly from manufacturers. The Oakland, California, company turned to BoxIT to upgrade its phone system, hoping to lower costs and provide greater flexibility to its 30 users, including many who work remotely.

The solution:

BoxIT chose VoIP to replace the tired PBX technology, which had its heyday in the era of switchboard operators. JTG/Muir threw away boxes of NEC telephones from its staffers' desks to make way for Yealink SIP (Session Internet Protocol) phones.

Staff can access this Flash-based view of calls to transfer calls and make recordings. For the pipeline through which voice and data traffic flows, BoxIT went with a SIP Trunk from Cbeyond Cloud Services. Rather than connecting to phones via old-school physical wires as in a PBX system, the SIP Trunk controls communication over the Internet. BoxIT prioritized voice over regular Internet traffic on the company network to ensure high call quality.

It also opted for a customizable, free, Linux-based phone system with a Trixbox CE server, based on Asterisk software. This enables users to make and receive calls through either the Yealink SIP phones at their desks or via soft phone from a laptop, an iPad, an iPhone, or an Android smartphone. Making the latter option possible is the Counterpath Bria soft-phone app, which offers editions for PCs as well as for Android and iOS devices.

BoxIT also added to the package a Web-based Fop2 Flash operator panel. This allows office staff to view instantly who is on which call, as well as to transfer and record calls. There are plans to integrate JTG/Muir's CRM (customer relationship managment) tool with Trixbox CE.

No downtime was necessary during the migration, as BoxIT had prepared the new system to take over immediately once the switch was made.

The outcome:

The BoxIT team: Eric Hasler, Thor Myhrstad, Chhay Chea and Matt MeierWith the old PBX phone system, users working remotely had to dial in periodically to check voicemail messages. Now, after the VoIP overhaul, they can turn on features such as Follow Me, which allows an office extension to ring offsite wherever they might be. Voicemail messages sent out as a .wav file can be played back on a smartphone, laptop, or other device.

If the Internet connection goes down at the office, the SIP Trunk can be set up to call an alternate traditional landline or cell phone, or it can send a call directly to voicemail and then deliver it in an e-mail message.

In addition to enjoying a new system that provides flexibility for often mobile employees, JTG/Muir is saving $1200 each month with three times the bandwidth as the old PBX system.

With the overhaul, JTG/Muir not only reduced costs but also freed its staffers to focus on selling solar hot-water heaters, radiant systems, and other heating products, both on the road and from the office.

--Case study submitted by BoxIT.

Cloud Computing and VoIP Will See Major Growth This Year

By Laura Stotler, TMCnet Contributing Editor

Cloud computing, virtualization and VoIP are going to realize major growth in 2011, according to a recent survey from Gartner (News - Alert). The company predicts 43 percent of organizations will embrace cloud computing and virtualization in some form this year, up from just three percent now.

The driving forces behind the push to the cloud will be limited growth opportunities, pressure to bear a low level of risk and rising costs. IT infrastructure will face increased levels of scrutiny from stakeholders as well as internal management. Gartner believes this increasing scrutiny will impact outcomes, operations, users and reporting.

PlanetMagpie, a San Francisco-area IT consulting agency, is increasing its footprint to gear up for an expected explosion in cloud services. The company built a larger building last year, and has introduced private cloud services to meet growing IT demand. The company provides custom IT consulting, web development, network support and managed IT services for small to mid-sized enterprises.

"Companies have to move forward now. I moved us up here so we'd have more server space to meet the demand, and a better location to reach customers all throughout the Bay Area," said Robert Douglas, founder and president of PlanetMagpie.

PlanetMagpie believes cloud computing, software-as-a-service (SaaS (News - Alert)) and VoIP appeal to organizations because of cost savings and flexibility. Other benefits include social media engagement and easy communications throughout an office.

Gartner forecasts SaaS and social CRM will undergo major growth over the next few years, causing a shakeup in the CRM market as new technologies and implementations take over.

“Over the next three years, social CRM will continue its exponential rise, software as a service (SaaS) will become routine, salesforce.com will reshuffle the market order, and consultants and system integrators will sell their own CRM software,” said Ed Thompson, vice president and distinguished analyst at Gartner.

Talk Is Cheap, VoIP Talk Cheaper

By Carolyn J Dawson

The Bria iPhone (News - Alert) edition gives iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad users the option to utilize VoIP calling in tandem with MSI's calling network to make pure VoIP calls from these devices at next-to-nothing prices, without having them to sacrifice on mobile plan minutes. By making use of the iPhone or iPod's existing contact list, Bria iPhone Edition facilitates easy and effective communication management with an intuitive interface that accommodates multiple calls.

In a press release, MSI CEO, John A. Roberts, said, "We are continually testing available products to maximize the MSI user experience, and highly recommend this solution to our clients as what we feel to be the very best SIP application for Apple (News - Alert) i-products. Combining the Bria App (available through the Apple App Store, for $7.99 USD) with MSI's global network provides what we feel to be the best combinations of calling technologies today."

The Bria app allows the user to have up to 8 SIP accounts on their phone and call functionality includes gives them the ability to swap between two calls, merge and split calls and perform attended and unattended transfers. The Bria iPhone Edition is a superior iPhone VoIP application for enterprises since it can also be used as an extension to enterprise client's PBX (News -Alert), thus allowing business users free mobile calls to and from their company's PBX, and instant access to everyone in their offices.

Roberts went on to say, "iPhone is of course, a phone, and therefore you would expect to be able to make calls from it. What is different in using the Bria iPhone Edition is that it is a SIP-based phone that uses a WiFi (News - Alert) or 3G connection to make and receive calls. Therefore customers can make and receive calls without using their cellular airtime. iPod Touch and iPad users can make and receive calls from their devices by using the Bria iPhone Edition, and either a wired earpiece headset, or a Bluetooth wireless headset."

Google has extended free Gmail calling through the end of 2011

Rejoice and harken ye, if you live in the United States or Canada that is, Google has decided to extend free Gmail calling through the upcoming year of 2011.

When voice came to Gmail, we loved it. It was a clean and simple way to execute calls without dealing with AT&T and your blinking iPhone’s love of dropping any call that you wanted to make.

Don’t forget, you might be able to set your Gmail settings to US English and access the feature, even if you are not in one of the approved countries. The ability to make free, clear phone calls has a large draw around the world, something that is unsurprising.

Google sure has the holiday spirit, let’s hope they have another prize up their sleeve before Christmas

Posted on Dec 20th, 2010 by Alex Wilhelm, http://thenextweb.com/

Avaya IP Office 7.0 will be out soon

The expected release date of Avaya IP Office version 7.0 is March 2011, but they are already beta testing it and it could be out even sooner.

Some of the main enhancements will be:



-The Nortel 1100e and 1200 series telephones will have added features

-The Nortel/Avaya T7000 Series and M7000 Mobile Handsets will work. Also, the Nortel Audio Conferencing units will now work.

- Some Digital Deskphones will now need a IP Office card or expansion chassis. After they are added Avaya and Nortel phones will be able to work at the same time.

- There will be a new BCM Migration wizard for moving all your Business Communication Manager Settings and voicemail recordings to IP Office effortlessly.

Some of the older, more basic Nortel Deskphones will now not be supported and may need to be replaced

- Lower end Nortel sets will not be supported on IP Office and they will need to be replaced.

- The best thing about this new version is that there will be the ability of BCM, IP Office, CS1000 and Avaya Aura to work together


Check this blog and trcnetworks.com to stay updated on the release date


Update: For the latest info on Avaya 7.0 Click here

6 Ways to Protect Your Voice Data

By Michael Sanchez | November 30, 2010 at 2:43 am PST

Minimize data loss due to security threats by making sure you have the right measures in place

A couple weeks ago, Dawn Brister discussed the four most common threats to your IP phone system. Now that you know what the risks are, it’s time talk about how to protect your voice-over-IP (VoIP) network.

VoIP offers plenty of benefits to small businesses; unfortunately, it also presents many opportunities for hackers to cause harm to your voice network. IP-based voice networks are vulnerable to the same risks as data networks. But you can use many of the same security techniques and technologies for your VoIP network that you may already be using on your data network.

The Information Systems Control Journal of ISACA, an independent association that provides education on information systems assurance and security, has a useful article about security within VoIP networks.

Following are six tips for securing your VoIP network and voice data:

• Lock up your servers: As with your servers and other central IT equipment, make sure your VoIP servers are under lock and key.
• Encrypt voice traffic: To avoid unauthorized access to calls and unauthorized changes to voice messages and other VoIP content, encrypt your voice traffic. All good VoIP systems should have built-in encryption capabilities to protect against such threats as man-in-the-middle attacks and unauthorized snooping of voice data.
• Install firewalls: Since VoIP traffic and data traffic all travel on the same physical network, protecting your data network helps protect your VoIP network. For example, the Cisco SA500 Series Security Appliances and Unified Communications 500 Series have security features to protect the entire network, both voice and data traffic, and use VLANs to virtually separate the two traffic flows from each other on the same physical network.
• Separate voice and data traffic: The ISACA Journal article recommends using separate servers for your voice and data traffic. This way, you can minimize the risk of voice and data loss in the event that your business is the target of a distributed-denial-of-service attack.
• Filter unauthorized traffic: Configure your switches, routers and firewalls to monitor and filter your network for unusual voice and data activities. For example, voice traffic should not be allowed on your data network and vice versa.
• Setup dial plans and user profiles: You can use VoIP system features to identify users, the type of calls being made and restrict unwanted traffic, such as outbound international calls. Traffic limits can also be set to ensure call quality and maximum voice and data network performance. These features can also be set to log caller activities and events.

In addition to these measures, you should also put strong passwords in place for your VoIP servers. You should also make sure you to sign up for updates to your VoIP server operating system from the manufacturer. These updates often fix security vulnerabilities that may have been found in the software and should be installed as soon as you receive the alerts.

Following these steps should protect your voice data and ensure that your VoIP network runs smoothly. What measures have you employed to secure your VoIP network?

How adding VoIP services can make your business competitive

Service providers have identified the delivery of voice and data services to the Small to Medium Business (SMB) market as a way to build on their current investment in residential services and create new sources of revenue. Commercial customers seeking alternatives to traditional telecom providers are a fertile market for operators who can offer direct business lines, hosted, “Centrex-like” business features, and/or T1/E1 trunking to support premises-based PBXs or IP PBXs.

Although service providers may have hardened their networks in conjunction with the introduction of broadband services, meeting the needs of business customers requires clearing substantially higher hurdles. Operation, Sales and Support strategies and procedures need to address a fundamental difference between the residential and the business markets: While quality and reliability of service are important to residential customers, they are absolutely vital to the bottom lines of business customers.

In addition, businesses require a greater breadth of features that serve the internal business communications and project a professional image to the customer. Examples of these features include Unified Messaging; Auto-Attendant; Multi-Party Audio Conferencing and Video Conferencing and others. For service providers, the ability to package, promote, provision, host and ensure the reliable availability of these features that help the SMB project a much bigger image represents significant technical and operational challenges.

Competition Drives VoIP Revenue Growth; UC Infrastructure Market Will Reach $4.8 Billion by 2015, Says ABI Research

NEW YORK --(Business Wire)--

According to new data from ABI Research, enterprises are ramping up their investments in VoIP technologies, both on customer premises equipment and hosted VoIP. VoIP technologies are part of enterprise communications products and services that include fixed mobile convergence (FMC), contact center, IP/TDM PBX, messaging, and conferencing and collaboration. The integrated unified communications (UC) suites market, which was adversely affected by the economy, is also poised to see some consistent growth to reach revenues of $4.8 billion by 2015.

IP PBX vendors are expected to ship just over 35 million IP lines (including native IP and hybrid lines) worldwide during 2010. IP telephony shipments will continue to see robust growth throughout the forecast period as enterprise communications systems converge on the IP platform.

However overall VoIP revenue growth is also due to a brisk competitive environment between CPE vendors and hosted VoIP service providers. Both camps are using product differentiation, attractive pricing, and improved customer service to win and keep customers.

Hosted VoIP services are buoyed by an additional set of drivers including the slow economic recovery, employee mobilization, and a more distributed workforce. This especially applies to the North American market.

Senior analyst Subha Rama says, "Even large businesses that traditionally shied away from hosted services for mission-critical communications are deploying hybrid models, experimenting ith hosted services in smaller doses."

Practice director Dan Shey points out that, "Hosted VoIP is a 'safe investment' and offers flexibility for businesses in a slow, uncertain economic recovery. Consequently, hosted IP PBX services are expected to finish the year with a 15.3% increase in revenue to $3.4 billion, worldwide. Besides North America, Asia-Pacific will also be aggressive with hosted VoIP deployments."

ABI Research's Enterprise Communications Market Data (http://www.abiresearch.com/research/1006227) provides worldwide and regional shipment, ASP and revenue forecasts for the VoIP market including premises-based telephony, hosted business VoIP services, VoIP integrated access and SIP trunking. It also includes forecasts for other unified communications technologies in the categories of fixed-mobile convergence, contact centers, messaging, and conferencing and collaboration. Further segmentation is provided for both vertical and size of business markets.

It forms part of the firm's Enterprise Communications Research Service (http://www.abiresearch.com/products/service/Enterprise_Communications_Research_Service).

ABI Research provides in-depth analysis and quantitative forecasting of trends in global connectivity and other emerging technologies. From offices in North America, Europe and Asia, ABI Research's worldwide team of experts advises thousands of decision makers through 30+ research and advisory services. Est. 1990. For more information visit www.abiresearch.com, or call +1.516.624.2500.

Is the Office Really Necessary? Global Study by Cisco Reveals 60 Percent Of Workers Believe Being in the Office Is No Longer Needed to Be Productive

Demand to Work Anywhere, Anytime Stronger Than Desire for Higher Salary; Two of Three Workers Expect IT to Allow Access to Corporate Information With Any Device – Personal or Company-issued

SAN JOSE, Calif. – Oct. 19, 2010 – Cisco announced today results of an international workplace study that reveals three of five workers around the world believe that they do not need to be in the office anymore to be productive. In fact, their desire to be mobile and flexible in accessing corporate information is so strong that the same percentage of workers would choose jobs that were lower-paying but had leniency in accessing information outside of the office over higher salaried jobs that lacked flexibility. These and numerous other findings provide real-life insight into the expectations, demands, and behavior of the global workforce that is influencing the way information is accessed and how business communications are changing.

The study, called The Cisco Connected World Report, will be presented today by Cisco executives during a live Internet TV broadcast from 8:00-9:00 a.m. PDT. To view the broadcast, click here: www.ustream.tv/ciscotv

Key Findings

Employee Desire for Mobility, Work Flexibility Very Strong

• The study, which involved surveys of 2,600 workers and IT professionals in 13 countries, revealed that three of every five employees (60 percent) believed it was unnecessary to be in the office to be productive. This was especially the case in Asia and Latin America. More than nine of 10 employees in India (93 percent) said they did not need to be in the office to be productive. This sentiment was extremely prevalent in China (81 percent) and Brazil (76 percent) as well.
• Two of every three employees surveyed (66 percent) expect IT to allow them to use any device – personal or company-issued – to access corporate networks, applications, and information anywhere at any time, and they expect the types of devices to continue diversifying. In the future, employees expect their choice of network-connected endpoints to broaden to non-traditional work devices like televisions and navigation screens in cars.
• For employees who can access corporate networks, applications, and information outside of the office, about half of the respondents (45 percent) admitted working between two to three extra hours a day, and a quarter were putting in four hours or more. However, extra hours do not translate to always-on, on-demand employees. They simply want the flexibility to manage their work-life balance throughout their waking hours.
• Employees also feel strongly about having the flexibility to work anywhere that it would dictate their company loyalty (13 percent), choice of jobs (12 percent), and morale (9 percent). For example, two of three employees worldwide (66 percent) said they would take a job with less pay and more flexibility in device usage, access to social media, and mobility than a higher-paying job without such flexibility. This percentage was higher in some countries, such as Spain (78 percent), despite economic woes the past couple years.

Can Businesses Meet Employee Needs?

• Almost half of the IT respondents (45 percent) said they are not prepared policy- and technology-wise to support a more borderless, mobile workforce. Not surprisingly, security is the top concern.
• Although many of the IT respondents felt security (57 percent), budget (34 percent), and staff expertise (17 percent) were the biggest barriers to enabling a more distributed workforce, employees often felt IT and corporate policies were the obstacles. This perception among employees was extremely prevalent in India, where more than half (58 percent) felt IT was the obstacle to a more flexible work style.

Employee Behavior Indicates Education, Corporate Policies as Important as Technology

• About one in five (19 percent) employees globally said they have noticed strangers looking at their computer screens in public, while an additional 19 percent admitted that they never think to check their surroundings.
• Nearly one in five (17 percent) employees admitted leaving devices unattended in public.
• Almost three of every five employees globally (58 percent) admitted that they have allowed non-employees to use their corporate devices unsupervised.
• As workforces become more distributed, the potential for data loss increases. One of four IT respondents (26 percent) said one-fourth of the devices issued to employees in the past 12 months had already been lost or stolen.
• As workforces become increasingly mobile, security and risk management concerns inevitably grow. The findings indicate the real need for better corporate policies, end-user education, and stronger, trusted relationships between employees and IT departments. How well IT brokers these relationships impacts a company's growth, productivity, competitive advantage, as well as its risk management.

About the Study

• The study was commissioned by Cisco and conducted by InsightExpress, a third-party market research firm based in the United States.
• Cisco commissioned the study to maintain its understanding of present-day challenges that companies face as they strive to address employee and business needs amid increasing mobility capabilities, security risks, and technologies that can deliver applications and information more ubiquitously – from virtualized data centers and cloud computing to traditional wired and wireless networks.
• The global study focuses on two surveys – one centering on employees, the other on IT professionals. Each survey included 100 respondents from each of the 13 countries, resulting in a survey pool of 2,600 people.
• The 13 countries include the United States, Mexico, Brazil, United Kingdom, France, Spain, Germany, Italy, Russia, India, China, Japan, and Australia.

Supporting Quotes:

• Marie Hattar, Vice President, Borderless Networks, Cisco:

"The Cisco Connected World Report gives further insight into the future of the workplace and it is clear from the research findings that the desire among employees to be more mobile and flexible in their work lifestyles is extremely strong throughout the world – as strong as salary. It is also evident that organizations need to embrace a borderless IT infrastructure to capture competitive advantage and increase employee satisfaction. The employee desire to be productive anytime, anywhere, using any device provides an opportunity to embrace the agility and flexibility provided through a Borderless Network Architecture."

• Dave Evans, Futurist and Chief Technologist, Internet Business Solutions Group, Cisco:

"Employee mobility is a fact of life, and the business advantages are clear across many industries. While The Cisco Connected World Report does identify real challenges for businesses, it also spotlights an opportunity for IT to enhance its relationship with employees and its role as an adviser and educator. Simply put, this report serves as a call-to-action for IT organizations. Work is not a place anymore. It's a lifestyle, and the IT profession's role is only going to get more strategic as it tries to help businesses stay agile and increase productivity."

Home TelePresence coming from Cisco?

Blogosphere lights up with specualtion on Oct. 6 consumer product launch

By Jim Duffy on Wed, 09/29/10 - 4:46pm.

The blogosphere is alive with speculation that Cisco next week will unveil a home version of its TelePresence virtual conferencing system for $200 to $500. The source of the fire seems to be this post from Reuters, but The Wall Street Journal's Kara Swisher is taking her share of the credit as well.

Comcast and Verizon may launch and endorse the product with Cisco, which is expected to compete directly with Skype's Internet video-calling service. Remember when Cisco was going to buy Skype? Instead, Skype hooked up with Cisco's unified communications and collaboration competitor Avaya this week.

Cisco is expected to extol the high-definition video virtues of its home TelePresence system as an advantage over the Skype service, Swisher says in her post. It is also expected to be much easier to implement than Cisco's higher-end, higher-priced business conferencing systems.

Cisco's holding a press event next week to roll out a new consumer device. Swisher, Reuters and many others in cyberjournalism are pretty confident this is it.

NY Times: Video Calling Is Going Mainstream, As Long As Price Stays Down

By Ed Silverstein, TMCnet Web Editor

Video calling is slowly moving from a science fiction fantasy to a daily reality for a lot of Internet users, The New York Times is reporting.

According to a new survey, the VoIP company, Rebtel, commissioned from Harris Interactive (News - Alert), shows that 14 percent of U.S. adults currently make video calls and 34 percent of them are willing to pay a fee for them, the Times reports.

With technologies like Skype (News - Alert) and its built-in video calling feature, as well as Apple's FaceTime and various other mobile video calling solutions, the market for video calling is becoming mainstream as the tools for making these calls are becoming more easily available, according to the Times.

The survey shows about a third of those Internet users who are making video calls are also willing to pay for it. According to the Rebtel (News - Alert) survey, the price for this feature can't be too high, the Times reports. Most users aren't willing to spend more than $10 per month for this, and 44 percent of those respondents who are willing to pay don't want to pay more than $5, the Times reports on the survey results.

Rebtel's CEO Andreas Bernstrom said, "This opens up a new, non-ad based revenue model for providers like Skype who are looking to monetize on their video services," said Rebtel’s CEO Andreas Bernstrom in the Times’ report.

In a related matter, TMCnet recently reported that mobile video chatting and conferencing has been a hot topic in the telecommunications space over the last few years. While the equipment is available, mobile networks do not have the bandwidth capacity to allow these products and services to be adopted on a widespread basis. With the recent advances in communications technology, consumers demand a higher level of video quality than mobile networks are currently capable of delivering, TMCnet reported.

For this reason, wired networks will continue to be a staple in the enterprise space, according to Rico Vitale, senior systems engineer at Enablence, a supplier of fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) equipment and optical components.

Avaya, Skype in deal to offer low-cost, IP-based calling

Skype users would be able to reach a company using Avaya gear for free or at low cost

By Matt Hamblen, Computerworld

Computerworld - Avaya and Skype signed an agreement Wednesday to offer Skype Connect to Avaya customers to help them lower international voice-calling costs through IP-based calls.

Avaya and Skype also plan to deliver a wider range of communications and collaboration capabilities for large businesses, helping both Avaya and Skype users connect with presence technology, instant messaging, voice and videoconferencing. The companies said such a service would be an efficient way for a company call center to resolve customer service inquiries. These services would be offered in the second phase of the agreement, beginning in the last half of 2011.

Alan Baratz, senior vice president of Avaya, said the agreement will offer customers a common user experience. Skype's David Gurle, general manager of Skype for Business, said the relationship with Avaya will help expand Skype Connect's footprint into more large U.S. businesses.

The first phase will bring Skype calling to IP-based enterprise communications systems running Avaya gear. A Session Initiation Protocol channel will be set up between customers with Avaya Aura Session Manager or SIP Enablement Server, CS 1000, IP Office or BCM systems. Those Avaya customers will use Skype Connect to make international calls at lower cost while getting enterprise-level security features in the Avaya systems.

Skype users globally will be able to make inbound calls to Avaya customers in the U.S. market for free or at low cost, and the Avaya gear will add a variety of features for collaboration. A business, for example, could add a Skype Click & Call button to its Web site for a customer to make a call to a customer care center.

Small- and medium-size business customers already using Avaya IP Office should be "very excited about getting access to Skype," said Steve Hilton, an analyst at Analysys Mason. "It will help them save money on international calling and get access to webcam-style video communications integrated with their Avaya phone systems."

Zeus Kerravala, an analyst at Yankee Group Research, said the partnership between Skype and Avaya should enhance the value of the coming Avaya Desktop Video Device and its Flare user interface. "This partnership would open up Skype presence information and voice over IP to be displayed and used by the Flare tablet," Kerravala said.

Avaya will also gain greater credibility as an IP switching vendor with the Skype agreement, Kerravala said. "With Cisco having such a huge palette of unified communications [systems], Avaya can gain credibility through its partnerships," he said.

VoIP Technology has Plenty to Offer Small Businesses

Posted by Patricia Sampson on Sep 1, 2010 11:00:24 AM

IP-based phones can reduce costs and improve customer service for a better bottom line

Have you ever played the game of “telephone,” where you pass a message from one person to the next to see how much the message changes by the time it gets to the last person? Garbled communications, although funny in that context, are not amusing in business. And like mixed messages and miscommunications, a traditional PBX phone system may be holding your small business back. They’re often hard to use and manage and, in some cases, provide inferior call quality. An IP-based phone system can help your company cut costs, increase flexibility, and improve communications—all of which can give your company a competitive edge. As a result, more and more companies are taking advantage of IP-based phone systems. In-Stat predicts that 79% of U.S. businesses will be using VoIP technology by 2013.

IP phones use Voice over IP (VoIP) technology to send voice traffic over data networks. VoIP works by translating speech into data packets that are then sent over broadband connections, instead of traditional phone lines. The data is then translated back into voice when it reaches its destination. By routing calls over your existing data network, you can reduce your company’s communications costs and eliminate the need for a separate voice network. In addition, features you’re currently paying extra for, such as conference calling, call forwarding, and caller ID, are included as part of your VoIP service; no more hidden fees. And you can save money by no longer having to pay a technician to add extra lines to your phone system.

In addition to saving money, VoIP provides more flexibility than a traditional phone system. You can easily add new or move existing employees. And employees who are working from home or on the road can access your company’s phone services using a VPN connection to the office.

If your small business operates in multiple locations, you can connect those offices using a single receptionist and voicemail system. With a VoIP phone system, you can use internal four-digit calling between locations, which significantly reduces long-distance phone charges. For more ways to maximize efficiency between multiple locations, check out our previous post on Unified Communications.

In-house or hosted

If you’re interested in adopting VoIP for your small business, you need to decide whether you want it based on site at your company or outsourced to a vendor. Installing an IP-based phone system in-house means that you’re responsible for purchasing, installing, and maintaining the equipment as well as managing the various contracts with your local, long distance, and Internet providers.

For companies that lack technical staff and resources, outsourcing an IP phone system makes more sense. Other than the phones on your employees’ desks, all the other equipment resides with and is managed by the provider. In many cases, you pay just a flat monthly fee for the VoIP services.

Is your small business using an IP-based phone system? What benefits has your company seen by using VoIP vs. a traditional phone system?

Learn how a Small Dental Practice is Using VoIP to save money.

Voice and Video Collaboration Services in the Cloud

By Stefan Karapetkov Video Networker

Cloud computing is defined as ‘virtualization of computing assets delivered on demand over the IP network’. It promises availability and scalability for applications ranging from storage to collaboration. Clouds are in particularly popular because the concept is easier to grasp than previous attempts to define similar services through Application Service Providers (ASPs) and Software as a Service (SaaS).

The Cloud is a more general concept that includes not only SaaS but also storage, platform, and infrastructure as a service. Clouds are in better position to deliver on the promise for interactivity. While slow networks in the past have made the user experience with ASPs quite negative, better networks available today allow for fast response times, and increased interactivity.

Analysts are excited about cloud services and see above-average growth; while the average IT market growth is expected to be 4% per year until 2013, IT cloud services are expected to grow 25% over same period. The current bidding war between HP and Dell for cloud storage technology provider 3PAR is a great example for how hot this market segment has become.

Evolution of Service Architectures

In the legacy approach, each enterprise application runs on separate server(s) that resides in one of the enterprise’s offices. This leads to inefficient use of space, energy (power-up and cooling), and substandard user experience. In the next stage of the evolution, all servers were collocated in a data center where they can share space and power. In the third stage, services are provided by the Cloud that can be within the enterprise (‘private cloud’) or outside the enterprise (‘public cloud’).

The term ‘virtualization’ is often used in relation to Clouds, and it is important to clarify virtualization’s role. Virtualization saves money by increasing server utilization, i.e. reducing the number of servers (hardware) necessary to support applications. Virtualization can be used in a traditional data center or in the Cloud. In both environments, virtualization reduces the hardware necessary to run enterprise applications. It has very strong positive financial and environmental impact.

Unified Collaboration

Unified collaboration combines variety of communication tolls – voice, video, email, presence, IM, etc. – into a seamless user experience, and into workflows, through a single user interface. Since UC installations are far past pilot deployments and are now being rolled out across large organizations, scalability is an important requirement.

Global teams span the entire world, and different time zones do not allow everyone on the team to participate live in all collaboration sessions. Audio, video, and shared content must therefore be stored and streamed. This leads to the requirement for efficient and scalable storage.

Accessibility of UC applications has two sides. First, users should be able to access them from anywhere, not just the office bit also from remote locations. Second, any device should provide access, including computers, telephones, appliances such as personal and group video systems, and even immersive telepresence systems.

To meet these UC requirements, UC architectures must follow IT architectures towards Clouds.

Bandwidth Requirements

UC applications, such as voice and video, require higher quality of service (QOS) than applications such as email, scheduling, or management. QOS are defined by bandwidth, latency, packet loss, and jitter. And while there are mechanisms in place to combat packet loss and jitter, bandwidth remains the most important resource necessary to support voice and video collaboration applications.

If multiple systems have to be connected in a multi-point conference, the traffic quickly grows, and may overwhelm the Cloud. Cloud throughput is critical for successful deployment of voice and video collaboration application. Recent advances in video compression technology, in particular Polycom’s implementation of the H.264 High Profile for real-time video, allow for ‘thinner’ connections between premise and Cloud without sacrificing the quality of experience.

In general, voice transmission requires less bandwidth than video. Even the highest audio quality does not require more than 128 kbps per channel and this is usually not an issue for the interface between customer premise and the cloud service provider.

Security Requirements

Numerous surveys of CIOs and IT administrators have shown that security is the leading concern around deploying Cloud services. With data applications, hackers try to capture and copy the customer data. With real-time collaboration applications, such as voice and video, hackers try to redirect and record voice and video calls.

There is currently a fairly robust security framework for user authentication, authorization, and media encryption – both in SIP and H.323 environments - that can be deployed to prevent interception of voice and video calls at the interface between customer and SP. However, this security framework has to be reevaluated and extended to cover new security threats that come with new cloud service use cases.

Many industry experts believe that cloud services will lead to improved security due to the centralization of data and the increased security-focused resource. SPs are able to devote resources to solving security issues that many customers cannot afford to solve themselves.

Availability Requirements

In the cloud services scenario, a lot of the infrastructure functionality that today resides on customer premise will be moved to the Cloud, and become a shared resource among enterprises. The availability of these resources is of paramount importance to the success of voice and video services in the Cloud.

One successfully deployed approach to increased availability (and scale) is the use of a redundant resource management application that controls a pool of multipoint conferencing resources in the network.

To make a pool of conference servers behave as one huge conference server, the resource management application tracks incoming calls, routes them to the appropriate resource (for instance, this can be done based on available server resources but also based on available bandwidth to the location of this server) and that automatically creates cascading links if a conference overflows to another server. If the conference is prescheduled, the application server can select a conference server that has sufficient resources to handle the number of participants at the required video quality (bandwidth). Overflow situations are probable with ad-hoc conferences where participants spontaneously join without any upfront reservation of resources.

The resource management application runs on two servers to ensure 100% redundancy and auto-failover. It is designed to provide uninterrupted service by routing calls around failed or busy conference servers. It also allows administrators to “busy out” media severs for maintenance activities while still providing an ‘always available’ experience from the Cloud user point of view. The system can gradually grow from small deployments of 1-2 conference servers to large deployments with many geographically dispersed conference servers based on the dynamic needs of growing organizations. System administrators can monitor daily usage and plan the expansion as necessary. This approach also provides a centralized mechanism to deploy a front-end application to control and monitor conferencing activities across all conference servers.

The resource management application also serves as a load balancer in this scenario, that is, it distributes the conference load over a group of servers, ensuring that a server is not oversubscribed, while another being underutilized. The larger the resource pool, the more efficient the load balancing function is, a feature that is very important to Cloud service providers who can offer conference services globally by using the resource management application and placing conference servers in central points of their networks. More approaches to increased availability and scale are discussed in the paper ‘Polycom UC Intelligent Core: Scalable Infrastructure for Distributed Video’.

Bringing Collaboration and Clouds Closer

The trend towards cloud services is driving both technology and business model changes.

On the technology side, UC technology providers have to make significant changes in the architecture for voice and video applications to better align with the architecture of Clouds. Reducing the complexity in the infrastructure and pushing it to the endpoints is a viable approach although the impact on the user experience through complex endpoint implementation is still being evaluated.

Cloud service providers have to meet challenges on their own. Clouds today are designed with data processing in mind, and throughput (bandwidth to and from the Cloud) and Quality of Service (latency, for example) are not at the level required for real-time interaction. Cloud providers therefore will need to increase throughput for real-time applications, and develop new service pricing to accommodate the specifics of real-time collaboration.

VoIP Phone Service - VoicePlex VoIP App Now Supports Apple's Mobile Devices

VoicePlex, a Maryland based hosted VoIP service provider, recently launched a new client application for the iPhone (News - Alert), iPad and iTouch devices. VoicePlex’s new application provides added support for Apple’s mobile devices by integrating seamlessly with existing VoicePlex’s Reach and Traveler services. Apple (News - Alert) customers can easily download and install VoicePlex1.0 from the App Store via the iTunes app for $6.99.

Designed to work with only VoicePlex services, the VoicePlex1.0 application supports all versions of iPad and iPhone devices with OS3.0 or later, however it only supports 2nd generation and newer iTouch devices. With support for both Wi-Fi and 3G networks, it enables users to choose their own ringtones, contact integration and also provides one-touch quick dialing page that brings users closer to their friends. VoicePlex application provides support for multiple languages such as US English, Chinese, Czech, Danish, French, German, Italian and more.

As the new VoIP service, Traveler is specifically designed for international travelers equipped with iPhone, iTouch or iPad device. The new client app clubbed with the new VoIP services will ensure low-cost calling while travelling within or outside the U.S., using the available Wi-Fi connection such as office, hotel or public hotspots like Starbucks or McDonalds. Commenting on the new Traveler VoIP services release along with the new client app, Dan Kosek, the co-founder of VoicePlex said, “Together these tools give the international traveler a solution to the high cost of calling back the U.S. while on the road. We believe supporting these devices is incredibly important for our customers.”

Founded in the year 2008, VoicePlex services include VoIP and Jabber/XMPP based IM in an enterprise service called Reach and a consumer service called Traveler. VoicePlex delivers cost-effective solutions for Apple's iPhone, iTouch, and iPad platforms. The Company develops solutions for SIP 2.0 compliant desk phones and PC/MAC based soft phones, and also Nokia's (News - Alert) dual-mode handsets like the E51, E63, E71, and N95 devices. Additionally, VoicePlex offers off-site consulting services in the areas of WiFi, VoWiFi, SIP, VoIP and Unified Communications (News - Alert).