Voice over IP Are we there yet ? Presented by: Mark Caswell, Empire Technologies, LLC. Voice over IP

Different types of solutions Reliability Scalability Security Proprietary Solutions vs. “Open” Standards VoIP Telephones VoIP Trunking VoIP Applications The answer to the question…. Defining “THERE”

VoIP Solution Types Hosted IP Centrex Hosted IP Solutions (Vonage, etc) Large Carrier Offerings SIP Offerings – Large and Small Carrier offerings Customer Owned Pure IP PBX Packet switched backplane Usually built on Data Networking Infrastructure (Switches, routers) and Servers Hybrid PBX TDM/Circuit Switched backplane Existing Proprietary PBX supporting open protocols IP Enabled using VoIP Protocol Components Example H.323 Gatekeeper/Gateway Model

RELIABILITY What are YOUR customer’s expectations concerning voice communications? How good is your Data Network ? What are the MTBF’s – Mean Time Between Failures Is the WAN fully or partially meshed ? Are there single points of failure ? Does the LAN support multiple paths ? How well is the Network supported ? How well is it managed from a performance point of view ? Can you add Quality of Service Management to the existing list of support responsibilities ?

Scalability Largely a question for Customer-Owned Solutions. How large is your total organization ? Small System solutions can range from 2 to 200 Stations and trunks. Large solutions can support up to 36,000 Stations and trunks on a single pair of hot standby servers. Small solutions (under 20 stations) can also be peer to peer and provide advanced features.

Security Voice (Conversation) Security Old School Wire Tap vs. Vomit Voice Encryption – only offered by some vendors for all devices, End to End Data/Server Security Denial of Service Attacks Operating System attacks - Viruses, worms, spyware, etc.

Proprietary Solutions vs. “Open” Standards Full Featured proprietary systems and phones do not typically work seamlessly with other vendor’s systems SIP Phones are “Lowest Common Denominator” The “Open” standard is interpreted by the vendor Limited feature set – 16 SIPPING features Additional features are unique to the telephone Not all phones and features will work with all SIP systems

VoIP Telephones Proprietary IP Telephones Specific to a vendor’s solution Typically have a complete PBX feature set Cost between $100 and $750 each SIP Telephones Not vendor specific Limited feature set - SIPPING Cost between $20 and $300

VoIP Trunking PBX Site to Site Trunking Can save Long Distance costs and share Data Networking Infrastructure Should include fail-over/over-subscription mechanism for re- routing calls SIP trunking PSTN Access Very cost effective Should also make sure PBX can re-route if necessary Several large players: Global Crossing, AT&T

VoIP Applications The REALLY GOOD Reason for using VoIP!  Productivity applications  Call Center / Computer Telephony Integration  Mobility Applications  Database access  Integration with existing business operations  Temporary Operations or Locations

The Answer: YES if it is planned and executed properly