VoIP pitfalls still out there

Enterprises deploying VoIP are facing disappointment because they did not do an adequate assessment of network needs in advance, a leading IP consultant is saying.

Richard Zimmermann of Forsythe Solutions Group said his company has gone so far as to refuse business with enterprise customers who won’t allow a full assessment of their corporate IP network prior to deciding when or whether to deploy VoIP.

“Many customers are naïve about voice – they are used to deploying data apps that are not as real-time as voice,” Zimmermann said. “Then, they will experience poor quality of service on the voice side. And the customers come away saying, ‘I knew it, the technology is not ready for prime time.’ But it’s not a technology issue – it’s a design issue. The reason calls are dropping is that the network isn’t designed properly.”

Deploying VoIP on a data network with improper Quality of Service parameters may be problem number one, but there are many more, he said, most related to expectations and planning problems. Too many enterprises are jumping into IP-based telephony because “the cool kids are doing it,” Zimmerman said, without a clear idea of how it will benefit their enterprise.

“There is such a market pull for IPT,” he said. “We advise our customers to look at the financial analysis and see if there is an ROI for you to deploy IPT or are you better sticking to analog until significant trigger comes along.”

Those triggers often include the need to upgrade or expand existing systems, or the end of a depreciation cycle.

“If an asset has been fully amortized, you are going to be more likely to be able to gain savings and depreciation expense, by deploying a new system,” Zimmermann said. “In addition, maintenance is reduced – the older the system gets, the higher the maintenance costs. So even though it is fully depreciated, the costs of operating the system are going up.”

Forsythe does a “hard cost” analysis for its customers of the transition to VoIP, not trying to factor in “soft costs” such as employee productivity, and it finds the greatest savings are in maintenance reduction, depreciation, moves-adds-changes reductions, toll avoidance and conferencing, in that order.

But most businesses still look at toll avoidance as the primary means of savings – or they might factor in the time employees save using a unified message system and expect to save that way.

“The problem is that if that employee time saved is spent surfing the Web or if the work day just gets shorter, then there may be an advantage there but it’s not a cost savings,” Zimmermann said.

It is also crucial to train employees thoroughly so that they use the new technology to its best advantage, he added. For example, a unified conferencing system which puts the conference bridge onto the enterprise calling system can eliminate outside Web conference and voice conferencing charges. But even within Forsythe, employees continued to use outside services, with which they were familiar, until forced to change to the new system, Zimmermann said.

“With a unified conferencing system, the more you use it, the more you save, which is the opposite of using outside resources,” he said. “But you have to make sure it is being used.”