Does VoIP really work?
It's amazing how this technology has taken such a roller coaster ride. Rolled out in the early 90's, I remember connecting with new upcoming carriers that wanted to prove the technology (I ran the INMC for a the 5th largest Telephone Company in the World) but continued to see less than stellar performance. This was using Cisco AS-5300's and 5800's. Then in 2000, I transitioned into a role of providing network management systems capable of managing IP Call Contact Center centers as well as rolling out enterprise wide Call Manager Systems. I then understood the complexity and truly appreciate the technology relied upon to make a call work and interconnect to the PSTN network and just to get a fax to work consistently was a daily issue. In 2009, I ran a Service Delivery and Field Technician group to deliver toll grade quality VoIP over a dedicated network (end to end) and resisted and renounced any over the top service or BYOB scenarios as everyone seemed to be riddled with quality and connectivity issues.
Today, I work at providing VoIP and Unified Communication services that I simply could not live without and doing this via LTE, Wi-Fi and Cable and even DSL providers in HD voice and video. I knew this was possible (look at Facetime) but really never thought that this technology would hold up to the needs of reliability our business customers demand.
Our current ability to have seamless business continuity is amazing and now opens the door for hiring people remotely and managed as if they are in the same office. This in itself is repurposing the use and value of VoIP and UC communications and places the importance of this technology even higher than previously regarded. I now can higher the best person for the job regardless of the geographical location. I use this technology daily, I am seeing the benefits of not being tied to a plastic phone rather an application that seamlessly transitions my service to whatever transport and device I am using. I don't know if this is as big of a deal as I believe it is or me just geeking out.
I would like to get other peoples opinion and start some dialog between my connected partners to understand am I the exception or the norm of how vital it is to integrate this technology into our daily business environment.
Best Regards
Dan S.
Mike, I have found faxing and even POS systems are extremely successful when using certain ATA's combined with properly conditioned Ethernet circuits. A great characteristic of an ATA is an over powered CPU's (allows better sampling) and associated tone and echo cancelation detection, combined with using an "all native" SIP carrier. The less conversions of TDM to Ethernet within the path from customer to customer the better. Using carriers that use T.38 and G.711 pass-thru as the norm really make a difference. ATA's that are cloud managed and gives you visibility to the call by call play, ensuring packet loss is under 1% and you can observe if codec negotiation is happening mid stream so you can work with the needed carrier to fix or set a different carrier profile to use. The other aspect is there are times you have to make changes on the fax machines (baud rate, ecm). This goes beyond the traditional demarcation of ILEC's however this is needed as well. As UC ONE progresses, this demarcation line is very blurred. In my current role, we are activating 100's with near zero defect. Remember not all ATA's are equal. :). Thanks for the great post. We didn't even get into the fax to email services you educate the customer on. Dan S.
Dan, I think you're right to highlight this technology, especially in light of FCC rulings this year regarding the retirement of copper assets. I remember scoffing back in the day when the IT folks called voice an "app." Even though it looks like they will be proven right, a better response to them might have been (and still could be), "I'm not sure that word means what you think it means." We are hurtling toward both widespread adoption of fiber bandwidth, as well as NFV and SDN technologies which, in my opinion, will cement the demise of traditional land-line services. Wireless companies must rub their hands gleefully when they consider the idea that we might all move our voice communication needs to the cloud. And what is a mobile network if not a flavor of cloud-based infrastructure? Cost of data packages and the unique requirements of business phone services may delay things a bit, although, I wouldn't be surprised to see the large wireless carriers coming up with business-class services that can be utilized over a related group of wireless handsets. VoIP is here to stay, I think. Now, if we could only get rid of those pesky fax machines....