Internet protocol (IP) telephony probably isn’t in the daily lexicon of the typical CFO. But maybe it should be.
There are a number of paths to IP telephony. The usual way is through one of the carriers, such as Verizon, or one of the networking vendors discount oakleys sunglasses, such as Cisco. More recently, IP telephony vendors such as Smoothstone have been cropping up in the cloud to provide fully hosted IP trunking to each location using SIP, some form of TDM emulation coach bags, or a media gateway.
And that’s not the worst. Most companies install more phone lines than they really need, to handle the rare peak usage when everyone at the location is on the phone at the same time. Given the way the carriers package TDM as trunks with more than 20 voice channels, the inefficiency can be startling — as much as 48 percent under-utilization. Even in the best cases, more than one-fifth of the lines may be underutilized. Multiply that by the number of locations, and the waste adds up.
IP telephony underlies the enhanced services of unified communications — for example, instant messaging (chat), speech recognition, integrated voicemail and email — while allowing organizations to dramatically reduce telecom costs. A Frost & Sullivan research report lays out the core rationale and lists the savings, which include: reduced calling costs; faster and more efficient moves, adds, and changes; lower overall network monitoring, management, and configuration costs; and reduced access costs and long distance calling costs.
In a published report, industry analyst Irwin Lazar at Nemertes Research estimates that, on average, companies that adopt an Internet telephony technology called session initiation protocol (SIP) save as much as 60 percent over what they pay for traditional TDM service. In one case, a company used 1,500 SIP lines to replace 2,250 TDM trunks discount oakleys sunglasses, which reduced telecom expenses from $5.4 million per year to $945,000 per year.
The immediate benefits are substantial cost savings, flexibility, and efficiency. In the long term, IP telephony lays the foundation for unified communications, the benefits of which wiredFINANCE reviewed here last fall.
As IP telephony, SIP takes advantage of the flexibility and inherent efficiency of the IP network, allowing organizations to centralize and consolidate phone lines, simplify management discount oakleys sunglasses, and redeploy underutilized lines on the fly. In short, SIP eliminates the need to physically deploy extra — and often idle —TDM circuits in each location. Central handling of such activities as moves, adds, and changes with the click of a button further reduces costs while enabling a more responsive organization.
Most businesses today organize their telecommunication by office or location, with local phone lines running into each. Most rely on traditional TDM (time-division multiplexing) telephone technology delivered by the local telecom provider. Such traditional networks are location-oriented and need physical provisioning, maintenance, and management at the site of the voice lines, all of which makes this phone setup inherently inefficient and costly.
Is your organization a candidate for IP telephony? Start by determining how many phone lines you’re paying for. Then ask yourself how fully utilized they are. How quickly could you reconfigure your phones in response to a sudden business opportunity? If your answers are: too many, too little, and too slowly, then you probably should consider IP telephony.
TDM is a port-based technology that requires fixed-line provisioning at each location. With TDM coach bags, the trunks (individual phone lines) require proprietary line cards that terminate the phone company’s dial tone at an organization’s on-premise equipment, often a PBX [private branch exchange]. Costs include on-premise equipment, carrier dial tone service for each phone line, and ongoing maintenance and support.
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