VOIP – THE TRUTH
When it comes to VoIP, I’ve found that most VoIP Technology vendors stretch the truth when it comes to what their VoIP systems can do.
I put this document together to help people become aware of the potential options (and pitfalls) when purchasing new VoIP phone solutions for your business.
I’ve been able to piece all of this together because for the better part of my career I’ve installed, maintained and sold Telephone Systems. This has also allowed me to provide sound advice from ‘Feet on the street practical experience. The aim has always been to achieve the best solution and value for money for our clients.
I put this together to help business owners better understand the techno jargon used today by slick sales people trying to impress CEO’s and IT professionals. It takes years of hands on experience to understand telephony. Software and Servers is the domain of IT professionals, IP telephony on a computer network reveals a complex set of challenges which can only be successfully deployed with the co-operation of IP Telephony and IT professionals.
IP Telephony will raise many questions compared to a traditional digital telephone system. If some of the concepts are new to you, don’t worry. IP Telephony offers much more than a phone with lots of buttons and flashing lights. We prefer to use ‘plain English’ to help dispel some of the common myths and misconceptions around VoIP communications.
If on the other hand you are an IT professional, it may be advantageous to chat further over a coffee. After 27 years in the industry we have a keen understanding of the intricacies of telephones and computers sharing a common platform. From our considerable experience the best results come from collaboration between telephone vendor and IT team. The overriding goal is to complete the project, not to compete.
Readers who’ve read my Special report “9 Things to Consider BEFORE buying a Phone System” will now understand what VoIP means in layman’s terms.
Now let me show you that not all IP Telephony systems are built equal and the slick sales spiel often glosses over the vital considerations when selecting a perfect fit IP Telephony solution for your business.
Voice on a computer network must be treated with a different set of rules. It takes many years of experience and comprehensive technical training to successfully sell, deploy and support IP Telephony systems. You wouldn’t ask your plumber for his opinion on a broken leg, would you?
You see software, Desktops, routers and servers are the domain of the IT professional, and an IP Telephony system simply shares the network and cabling.
The challenge for many IT executives is to make the business case for unified communications. This can be tricky, because purported productivity benefits can be hard to quantify. However if the business case exist, Unified Communications is a way to improve internal communications and increase productivity. There also is the potential for cost savings.
Setting and managing expectations is an important part of a successful Unified Communications (UC) deployment. Any institution considering migrating to UC must carefully evaluate the many options to determine at which point their needs actually suit a UC solution.