special feature
VoIP
Similar to the photographer who was asked, ‘How do you take such wonderful photographs?’ The photographer replied, ‘lighting, lighting, lighting!’ Case in point, end users will need ‘bandwidth, bandwidth, bandwidth.’ This will be costly to the business, but nonetheless a must have to achieve SLA expectations.
Security
Businesses are willing to pay a premium for HD services.
Session and security aware devices are very important. Going forward, successful agents need to be able to recommend Session Border Controllers (SBC) to customers as a security option. There are vendors out there creating edge devices to ensure SLA policies at the edge of the enterprise. These edge, or border devices, ensure a high quality, end-to-end interactive communications across multiple IP networks. It’s done, for example, by giving voice traffic priority over casual web browsing data. This is known as traffic shaping and routing policies, again ensuring SLAs. SBCs can block attacks from malicious Internet attacks, provide QoS accounting, least cost routing mechanisms and policy control over media. Together, these edge devices help create a comprehensive solution required to deliver a robust, quality, moneymaking, voice, video and multimedia communications across IP network borders.
biography
enterprise world – where knowing where a contact is and their immediate availability to take a call is a huge competitive advantage over the competition waiting for a voicemail or snail mail reply.
Khris Kendrick brings more than 20 years’ experience to his role as senior director of business development at Grandstream
Networks, a worldwide manufacturer of IP voice/video telephony and video surveillance solutions for broadband networks. In this pivotal role, Khris sets the vision for CPE business strategy and developing partner relationships. Prior to joining Grandstream, he was senior business development manager for Motorola’s Core Networks Division, and was responsible for setting business strategies for IMS, Fixed Mobile Convergence (FMC) and managing third party IMS ecosystem relationships.
Installers can extend the value of a business customers’ SIP enabled IP PBX, by integrating Skype for SIP without the need for new hardware or software. Skype for SIP allows voice and video calls to be made directly from their desk phones with third party software and hardware from such vendors as Grandstream. Right now desktop HD voice, HD conferencing and HD video are primary sources of excitement in the industry. Businesses are willing to pay a premium for these HD services. As the price of VoIP handsets and voice termination approach ground zero, higher margins will be available by deploying HD quality wide bandwidth voice and video. Be sure that the network can support it through the service provider’s SLA plan.
Importance of partnering Firstly, SLAs are the thickest link in the value chain. Without the assurances of voice fidelity and a finely tuned managed network, customers will shun the new service. They will want proof of 24/7 remote monitoring for voice and video, QoS, training, and fast turnaround for support issues. Installers should review network provider policies carefully. The same goes for CPE manufacturers. Licensing, RMA process, second local support, web based knowledge bases and ticketing that can be accessed 24/7 should all be reviewed and in place. Secondly, businesses have a higher tolerance for
robotic jitter and dropped calls on mobile phones. On landlines, there is low tolerance. A phenomenon like this can drive businesses back to legacy networks. PSTN incumbent service providers have these highly tuned SLA processes in place and would gladly take back their customer. This is where the symbioses come in: For sustainability, find a service provider with fast support channels and robust SLA and partner with a manufacturer with first and second level support.
30
Business benefits VoIP implementation is a huge boost to any business, saving up to 70 per cent from the reduced need for equipment, lines, manpower and maintenance. Benefits range from number portability, service mobility,
ability to integrate and collaborate with other applications like Skype’s global click to call button on a business’ website, voicemail sent to email, call completion on multi-clients (mobile phone, PC and home phone) using features like Find Me Follow Me. With the implementation of video phones, high quality video calls can be easily adopted within businesses as a substitute for time consuming, costly business travel while visually connecting geographically dispersed workers and customers. Implementing applications like VoIP and Skype for SIP
allows companies to drastically reduce long distance costs by allowing customers and remote employees to make free inbound calls to the IP PBX from anywhere in the world. Inbound calls from customers requiring assistance from technical support, sales or customer service can all be handled by this method for free, as opposed to using a costly dedicated 800 service. With the world economic situation, businesses need to acquire customers and keep existing customers happy with superior customer service without having to outlay huge amounts of money for operating costs like phone calls.
Summary In summary, there are three parties involved in getting enhanced voice solutions to the business customer or consumer. Solutions providers need to work in unison to benefit from VoIP’s value proposition. If one partner is not pulling its weight, the installer can end up losing customers and missing valuable opportunities to acquire new ones. It’s important for installers to get it right from the onset by selecting the right product and service providers to persuade customers to commit to new communication services and stay with them. From there, happy customers will propagate their success stories virally through their own social networks.
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56