Business VoIP Systems: Minimize Your Risk with These 5 IP Telephony Tips

Let's get right to it and list the five checkpoints for properly migrating to a new business VoIP system, then we'll deep dive into each one in more detail.

1. Don't be fooled by proprietary IP PBX vendors and get locked into a non-standard business VoIP system.

2. Preliminary LAN analysis and assessment and proper network testing is a must!

3. Do-It-Yourself Syndrome - "We're in the IT business and I know my IT staff is smart, we can save money by doing it ourselves!"

4. Focus on the bigger picture - lower calling costs is not the main reason to migrate to a business VoIP system.

5. Increased productivity - make sure you're working towards an IP telephony strategy that offers truly converged voice and data.

When researching, comparing, and shopping for a new corporate IP telephony solution make sure to keep the terms "SIP" and "open standards" in mind (not to be confused with "open source").

SIP, which stands for Session Initial Protocol is emerging as the latest standard for delivering VoIP service. The reason being is because it is software-based and bandwidth-light and has proven itself to be the most pragmatic approach of delivering real-time communications over IP such as IP telephony.

The older legacy standard H.323 is an older, heavier (i.e. more bandwidth-intensive), and hardware-based protocol that is, for the most part, regarded as obsolete compared to SIP.

While nearly every VoIP service provider IP PBX manufacturer will claim that their product or service is SIP-based, the fact remains that there exist different "flavors" of SIP, some of which are more proprietary in nature in that they were invented by certain manufacturers who have either struggled implementing a truly open standard SIP version into their business voip system hardware or were stubborn in the early days of SIP development and were attempting to get their flavor of SIP to be accepted as the global standard.

The risk you run in choosing a manufacturer that has not built open standard SIP into its product blue print is getting locked into expensive propriety hardware and software from a single source, while not being able to inter-operate with and choose between brand name and more popular standards-based SIP products.

2. Preliminary LAN analysis and assessment and proper network testing is a must!

Talk to any VoIP service provider, any IP PBX manufacturer, any IP telephony system integrator or read any business VoIP system whitepaper and you'll hear and see a recurring theme: test, test, test before you install your IP PBX!

Its when small businesses take a "fire, ready, aim" approach to installing a new VoIP PBX solution that they see increased business VoIP system downtime and ongoing call quality issues.

Legacy phone systems operated on their network and lived their lives in their own silo, untouched by and unaffected by the data networks that they often operated side by side with.

But, with VoIP service, voice becomes another software application that rides on and depends on the existing data LAN. As it so happens VoIP service is also the most sensitive and fragile of all IP applications because of the "ream time" nature of voice service. In other words, when speaking to another person over a phone, you expect to hear what they're saying clearly, concisely, and without delay.

So, in order to ensure that your data network is capable of delivering the necessary "white glove" treatment to its newly inherited voice responsibilities, it's absolutely imperative that you take the necessary steps to properly test and ensure that it's up to the job.

Here are some specific areas where to pay the most attention and perform the prerequisite analysis:

- Network capacity = how much bandwidth does your LAN support (10 Mbps or 100Mbps, for example) and how much of that bandwidth does your office regular consume (ex. email, web surfing, file sharing, software-as-a-service applications, etc.) Enough needs to be left over to properly support your IP telephony calls!

- Quality of Service (QoS) = do the servers, routers, and switches on your network support QoS for traffic prioritization to give time-sensitive VoIP service packets priority over data packets that can bear more latency.

- Network traffic = what's your LAN's usual bandwidth consumption and traffic patterns, based on packet type, during normal and peak usage hours?

- Network reliability = does it offer Five 9's reliability (99.999% uptime). How old are certain routers and switches, do they need to be rebooted regularly? Is their software up-to-date? All LAN hardware, endpoints, and software need to be kept bullet proof to ensure proper operation and call quality of your business VoIP system.

- Network security = do you have a professional-grade network security policy in place, and does it include system security parameters and procedures related to your newly added VoIP service?

- Codec selection = codecs determine how VoIP packets are compressed and decompressed by VoIP devices such as IP phones and gateways. Selecting G.711 or G.729 or G.723 determines how much bandwidth each VoIP phone call consumes.

- e911 (enhanced 911) = do you have a solution in place that ensures the continued availability of lifeline emergency services? In many states and countries the law requires that employees have access to 911 emergency calling from their workplace phones. But, e911 is not supported by every VoIP service provider or IP PBX solution, so double checking your selected IP telephony system covers this is imperative.

3. Do-It-Yourself Syndrome - "We're in the IT business and I know my IT staff is smart, we can save money by doing it ourselves!"

Businesses must understand that adding IP telephony over an existing data network is not like adding just another software application to the system. VoIP services require an elevated level of attention and ongoing maintenance to ensure that workers experience the same reliability they've grown accustomed to with the legacy TDM system they've likely been using over the last many years if not decades.

Therefore, no matter how smart and savvy an existing IT staff may be, if they have little to no experience in migrating an enterprise class phone system to IP telephony, then its best to consider investing the extra money upfront to hire a professional business VoIP systems integrator/installer/consultant/project manager (call them whatever name you want!) who can properly plan the overall project and act as the project manager.

After all, hundreds of dollars more on installation carries a much better payoff than running the risk of thousands of dollars worth of downtime and lost productivity in the future!

4. Focus on the bigger picture - lower calling costs is not the main reason to migrate to a business VoIP system.

5. Increased productivity - make sure you're working towards an IP telephony strategy that offers truly converged voice and data.