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VoIP: Voice over IP gets real

The idea behind voiceover IP (VoIP) was simple: Convert voice into digital packets, then get around the phone company by sending them over the Internet. But for several years, quality was poor, lag times were long, and promises of expanding bandwidth didn't pan out.

Fast-forward and it looks like VoIP may finally have its day. The quality of hardware, software, and bandwidth has increased dramatically, while prices have plunged. Many companies have built significant LAN and WLAN infrastructures that aren't fully utilized, while many aging PBX (private branch exchange) systems are fully depreciated. Now that even small companies face the challenge of keeping remote users connected to the mothership, VoIP is poised to step in.

Estimates vary about how much impact VoIP will have on the average business. J.P. Morgan has estimated that by 2005, one in every five telephone calls will either start or finish on a packet-switched device. The consulting firm of Frost & Sullivan has taken that prediction a step further, estimating that by 2007 three-fourths of the world's voice services will be VoIP.

So why is VoIP finally living up to its promise? To begin with, many of the bugs have been worked out. IP phones now look, feel, and function like regular phones, with all the features that PBX users take for granted—like call-forwarding, transferring, conferencing, message-waiting, and voicemail, as well as top-shelf services like call-detail reporting, automatic call distribution, and multilevel auto-attendants.

Economies of scale have made bandwidth much cheaper, and both small and large businesses have Ethernet-based network architecture and DSL-or-faster Internet connections. And the migration of employees and contractors away from traditional centralized corporate offices sheds new light on many of VoIP's strengths, particularly its flexibility and the ability to access features and content via non-phone devices.

Best of all, perhaps, is the emergence of hybrid IP solutions such as PBX gateways, which allow a company to continue to make use of their PBX investments while enhancing them with affordable VoIP add-ons and features. PBX can be run over VoIP, or VoIP over PBX—whatever makes the most sense in a given situation.

VoIP has proven to be a natural extension of the ongoing trend with telecommunications clients, many of whom have been upgrading to carrier-grade blade servers and discarding old PBX systems in favour of a more flexible solution. SNMP provides revenue-generating applications for telecommunications service providers, including call-centre management and voice or video conferencing.

SNMP is in a position to help companies from multinational corporations to the corner store devise effective ways to design VoIP systems, integrate them into existing networks, and deploy them in affordable ways.